NAIROBI, Kenya — U.S. first girl Jill Biden mentioned Friday that she feels a kinship with Africans throughout her sixth go to to the continent, telling The Related Press in an unique interview that she desires to help nations preventing for democracy — “similar to I really feel we’re doing in america.”

“We can not take issues without any consideration, as a result of it is such a valuable system of presidency,” she mentioned. “We will not be complacent. We’ve got to maintain preventing for it.”

The primary girl opened her journey earlier this week in Namibia, a younger democracy, the place on Friday she delivered a rousing speech to greater than 1,000 college students. She instructed them the democracy their mother and father and grandparents fought for is now theirs to defend and shield.

Within the interview, Biden mentioned that when first girl Monica Geingos invited her to go to, “I assumed there is no higher place to go than to go to Namibia” to “encourage the youth to get entangled, keep concerned, battle for his or her democracy, similar to I really feel we’re doing in america.”

Africa’s 54 international locations are a mixture of generally fragile democracies in locations like Nigeria, which has an election this weekend; and extra troubled nations like Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Chad and Sudan which have seen coups in recent times; or Uganda, Gabon, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon, the place presidents have been clinging to energy for many years. Namibia gained its independence from South Africa in 1990.

American democracy was severely examined after President Joe Biden’s election in 2020 when the incumbent, Donald Trump, repeatedly instructed lies concerning the election being stolen from him. Tons of of his supporters who believed his conspiracy theories rioted on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in a violent try to dam Congress from certifying Biden as the brand new president in an unprecedented effort to thwart the customary peaceable switch of energy.

In her speech, Biden mentioned girls’s and women voices must be extra outstanding within the debate about democracy.

“As the primary era to be born right into a free Namibia, the legacy that your mother and father and grandparents created is now yours — yours to defend and shield,” Biden instructed a largely scholar viewers at Namibia College of Science and Expertise.

“Yours to develop. And as we glance ahead, we should keep in mind that the battle for democracy has no finish.”

Biden later Friday moved on to Kenya, the second and ultimate cease on her journey.

She highlighted the plight of ladies and women on her earlier stops in Namibia. In Kenya, she plans to make use of her stature to attract consideration to a devastating drought throughout the Horn of Africa that’s leaving folks hungry and jeopardizing thousands and thousands of lives. She had visited in 2011 throughout a extreme famine.

“I’m hoping that, you recognize, that individuals do listen,” Biden mentioned within the AP interview. “To see the drought and what I noticed earlier than with, simply, youngsters who haven’t any meals they usually can’t have livestock, they will’t develop crops and to be ravenous, and so I’m making an attempt to essentially create consciousness and, and simply see how far issues have come within the 10 years, actually, that I’ve been gone.”

The primary girl, who has hung out in additional than a half dozen of Africa’s international locations, mentioned she feels “actually snug” on the continent.

“One factor I’ve discovered is that every nation is so completely different — the persons are completely different, the tradition is completely different, the faith is completely different, the language,” she mentioned. “However, you recognize, all of us share so lots of the identical values.

“And I believe that’s essential, that we’re in search of stability, a secure authorities. We’re in search of, you recognize, illustration of the folks. We’re in search of leaders who’ve character and integrity, and that’s what I believe we wish to foster. They usually do, too.”

She mentioned the Biden administration isn’t “isolationist like we had been turning into within the final administration,” a reference to Trump and his America-first posture.

“We’re reaching out and saying, ’Hey, we’re a worldwide society. Take our arms. Let’s do that collectively,” she mentioned of the present administration.

Biden has labored with younger folks all through a 30-year-long educating profession and mentioned in her handle to the scholars that they need to train their rights to disagree and to dissent, to talk up once they see injustice and help leaders who take heed to their issues.

She famous that, in america, “we’re nonetheless defending and strengthening our democracy, nearly 250 years after our founding.”

“It is not straightforward. Democracy isn’t straightforward. It takes work,” she mentioned through the rousing, rally-style speech. “But it surely’s value it, as a result of democracy delivers.”

Afterward, she labored her means across the courtyard in a means that she not often do to shake arms and pose for selfies with scores of excited college students. They cheered at one level when she danced briefly to a drum-heavy African beat.