According to UNESCO: there are over 154 million children in the world deprived of education due to poverty, slavery, racism, religious extremism, gender discrimination, and geographical isolation. The cost to educate a child in the third world is about $ 1 per month per child. To achieve global literacy, the investment would be $ 8 billion per year for 15 years.

I've learned that terror doesn't happen because some group of people somewhere like Pakistan or Afghanistan simply decide to hate us. It happens because children aren't being offered a bright enough future that they have a reason to choose life over death.

The Pathan people of Waziristan are proud people who I greatly admire.

In America we now live more in fear than in hope, and eventually that will lead to ignorance and hatred. We need to have optimism that the world can be a better place, and we can leave a legacy for our children. Being bilingual, travel and studying geography, culture and religions can help.

But what I really believe is education is a key to pretty much everything - prosperity, economics, peace, stability.

. . . hope resides in the future, while perspective and wisdom are almost always found by looking to the past.

You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.