In the poorest countries...it is women who are the key to breaking out of poverty...and preparing another generation for...leading their countries into real security.

In some extreme cases, women are constrained by what can only be described as pre-Islamic, misogynistic approaches to the role of women in society. That continues to be a challenge.

I founded the King Hussein Foundation after my husband's death in 1999, to build on his humanitarian vision and legacy in the country and abroad, through programs promoting education and leadership, economic empowerment, tolerance, cross-cultural dialogue, and media that enhances mutual understanding and respect among different cultures across conflict lines.

I work out on almost a daily basis wherever I am, but yoga brings into that equation something that is ideal for me to maintain a physical and emotional and mental kind of balance, and to stay healthy - I see it as a way of investing in my future.

I've seen it around the world, in the poorest countries and in countries riven with conflict, It is women who are the key to breaking out of poverty, breaking out of stagnation. It's women who can contribute to achieving real security - not bombs and bullets and repressive governments.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s peaceful, determined struggle for social justice, and Sargent Shriver, who launched the Peace Corps, were early heroes. A career of public service was the ultimate aspiration.

Everyone I knew, including my new friends in Jordan, expressed horror at the realities of the Holocaust. But they resented, as I was growing to, how Arabs were cast as the aggressors in the dispute between Israel and the Arab countries, when it was their land that had been seized to resolve a European political problem.