Queen Rania Visits Young Women's Leadership School of East Harlem

via Huffington PostRedTracker Earlier this week Queen Rania visited the Young Women’s Leadership School of East Harlem, a school that defies the worst characteristics of schools in poor American communities, by placing its girl graduates in the top 4 percent of New York City high school students.

Queen Rania marked her appointment as the Honorary Global Chair of the United Nations Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) in a tour, accompanied by UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.

H.M. Queen Rania told the girls that education was, for her personally, “my compass, my springboard, my sword.”

The queen, who is also UNICEF’s Eminent Advocate for Children, said she was familiar with stories about social and economic circumstances causing girls to skip school, engage in substance abuse or petty crime, or have children while they are still children themselves.

“That’s not your story,” she said emphatically.

Queen Rania also encouraged the girls to consider the plight of the 100 million children around the world — most of them girls — who have been kept out of school by neglect or by force.

“I want you, girls with voices, to speak up and shout out for girls whose cries fall silent,” she said. via UNICEF