When we were walking through the narrow alleys [of the Mathare Valley slums], it was literally impossible not to step in the raw sewage and the garbage alongside the little homes. But at the same time it was also impossible not to see the human vitality, the aspiration and the ambition of the people who live there.

Each of us can work to change a small portion of events. And it's in the total of all those acts that the history of this generation will be written.

Human beings tend not to spend money on health preventionally. We tend to spend it on top treatment.

The human spirit is extraordinary. If we give the 3 billion people who live in poverty the opportunity to change their lives, they will. For too long, we've looked at needing to "save" these people - with an emphasis on "these people" - rather than removing the constraints keeping them from solving their own problems.

Your job is not to be perfect, your job is only to be human.

Every day we have a choice. We can take the easier road, the more cynical road, which is a road sometimes based on a dream of a past that never was, fear of each other, distancing and blame, or we can take the much more difficult path, the road of transformation, transcendence, compassion, and love, but also accountability and justice.

I wrote 'The Blue Sweater' to inspire more people to become engaged in working to solve the problems of global poverty.