'No is just Next Opportunity': Liberia's education minister tells young women how rejection became a valedictorian's story

Liberia's Minister of Education, Dr Jarso Maley Jallah, stood before young women and girls at the SHE's the Way Summit in Monrovia and told them about the school that turned her away as not smart enough. She went elsewhere — and graduated as valedictorian. Organised by the Macdella Cooper Foundation, the summit heard her urge participants to keep preparing and learning even when the goal is still out of sight. A rejection letter, in her telling, is not a verdict: read differently, NO is just 'Next Opportunity'.

SDG 4 · Quality education — Mechanism: individual leader