In many developing countries, girls don't go to school. They stay home. They are at the water wells, bringing water back and forth to the village. Or they are doing chores, preparing meals, farming. Some cultures think girls and women shouldn't be educated, and those are very often the places where the treatment of women and girls is the worst.
Laura BushIf you take the burden of health care, of diseases off the backs of some other countries, it gives them a chance to use their own very limited resources in ways that help their people. And also there's a hopelessness associated with deadly diseases, that if that can be alleviated, people can build their own economies in their own countries and they'll be less reliant on the developed world for help.
Laura BushIt's really important for boys to have a father around, or a grandfather, or an uncle - a man they can really relate to who loves them, and who they know loves them.
Laura BushWe know how unhealthy it is. I know what happens, though - young women start smoking because they don't think they're really going to keep smoking.
Laura BushThe English language lacks the words 'to mourn an absence.' For the loss of a parent, grandparent, spouse, child or friend we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something, even if it is only 'I am sorry for your loss.' But for an absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?
Laura Bush