38 Quotes by Ann Cotton

Be greedy for social change, and your life will be endlessly enriched. The only failure lies in not trying, or giving up.

The aim of militants such as Boko Haram, whose very name means 'Western education is a sin,' is to sow hatred and enmity between Muslim and Christian communities, which have co-existed largely peacefully for generations. Education, in particular the education of women, is a threat to Boko Haram's goals.

Have faith in your intuition and listen to your gut feeling.

In the family pattern, men support boys and women support girls, and because women have far fewer financial resources, there is less money to invest in girls.

There are 45 million children in Africa who are not in school. While other children are learning, exploring, and growing in the myriad ways that children were meant to grow, these children are trapped in a life of constant struggle. Without education, how can they be expected to escape such struggle? How can their children?

Women's vulnerability around money is hardly exclusive to Africa. Throughout the world, women struggle with financial power. In the West, women's financial literacy is notably lower than men's. That lack of knowledge means that many women slide into poverty when they become widows.

You need to listen to the people experiencing the problems, and their ideas need to crowd out the words of the 'can't be done-ers.'

I have seen the transformative effect that education has in the lives of young women and their communities.

You can't raise the aspirations of a child and then leave them hanging. Poverty can't be solved by a project. It's solved by a relationship, collaboration.