I have come to understand that in order to effectively advance women's rights, we need to galvanize a global women's movement.

Women in the Arab world have a rich history in their active participation in political change from the Algeria revolution against the French occupation to the most recent revolution in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya among other countries. The question is not their participation. Their question is the incorporation of women's voices fully in the new definitions of the countries where change has happened.

Where has change ever been clean and nice? It has always been messy and painful.

Everything is give and take. The solutions are in the middle not in the extremity of the situation.

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

Sometimes you just have to jump off the cliff without knowing where you will land.

When war ends, women are the first to pick up the pieces. Where there is no market place, they go door to door. When homes are destroyed, mothers and daughters haul stones to rebuild or plow fields together.