My dream is to find individuals who take financial resources and convert them into changing the world in the most positive ways.
Poverty is not only about income levels, but for lack of freedom that comes from physical insecurity.
As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce...
People really don’t want handouts, that they want to make their own decisions.
Just start. Don’t wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.
Don’t let people tell you to do it this way. You are on the verge of figuring out hybrid models – with companies and nonprofits, markets, government, crowd-sourced philanthropy. The capitalist system as we know it is not working.
How you see where you are always depends on where you’ve been.
We have to remember that the girls and the women are most isolated and violated and victimized and made invisible in those very societies where our men and our boys feel disempowered, unable to provide.
It’s about all of us, and the kind of world that we, together, want to live in and share.
When people gain income, they gain choice, and that is fundamental to dignity.
Freedom ultimately is dignity. And dignity, not income, is the opposite of poverty.
There are cases where government-to-government aid actually has worked. Look at the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of polio. But these are really top down solutions that require government-to-government support and aid.
I have seen that traditional approaches to charity and aid don’t solve problems of poverty. In fact, too often they create dependence.
I wrote ‘The Blue Sweater’ to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.
I think I still have a great sense of adventure and trust, and am surprisingly idealistic given all the horrible things I’ve seen since I was 25. I think how I have changed is that I have a much deeper understanding of the dark forces in the world, of power.
I believe the government should ensure all children are provided with a good education.
People have to understand that unless social enterprise is experimental, it will not succeed in making a difference.
Freedom is what beauty feels like when it can most express itself.
Human beings tend not to spend money on health preventionally. We tend to spend it on top treatment.
For too much of history, we’ve viewed the world’s precious resources – both environmental and human – as things to extract, to make the most of in order to maximize their potential.