Growing up under Saddam's rule, I witnessed many injustices occurring everyday in my country and yet I could not do anything to prevent them.

Believe in your passions and act on them.

Women are not just victims; they are survivors and leaders on the community-level backlines of peace and stability.

Changes don't happen in the world by playing it safe, taking risks is the way to change the world.

I don't have a child, so Women for Women is like my child. But I always said I would step down after 20 years. I didn't want to be a 60-year-old woman holding on to something I created when I was 23.

I believe that a lot of progress has been achieved to address gender inequality: We have moved from a time where women in the US could not apply for credit card without their husband's signature to a time where women are the owners of their businesses.

My message to the world is that until we recognize that peace is not just the absence of war but the revival of life on the "backlines," where women are keeping kids in school, caring for the sick and injured, and daily negotiating space for the continuation of critical life processes of this nature, we're going to continue to miss the point.