Honour what is most beautiful about the past and build it into the promise of the future.

When I first went to Africa, I thought that I was personally going to save the continent, if not the world.

1.5 billion people lack proper access to electricity. Many buy kerosene, which can cost 30 percent of their income. It sends millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year. And often the lamp will fall over and catch the house on fire. So mothers hate it, but it's their only option.

Things are always harder than you think they're going to be.

I was going to save the world, and I thought I would start with the African continent.

When we deny the poor and the vulnerable their own human dignity and capacity for freedom and choice, it becomes self-denial. It becomes a denial of both our collective and individual dignity, at all levels of society.

Just start Don't wait for perfection. Just start and let the work teach you.