Believe in your passions and act on them.

Since a very young age, my mother made sure to tell me about the plight of women... As she raised my awareness about women's issues, she also made sure to ingrain in me the importance of being strong and independent and not to let anybody define me by their images of what women should be.

I by no means intend to simplify the challenges women face in any culture. Women are marginalized in all cultures in my opinion, some in more extreme ways than others.

I dont want to be someone in my sixties holding on to a group that I created when I was in my twenties.

Historically speaking, religious and conservative groups always wanted the control over the private sphere that impacts women most, as reflected by family law and women's access to resources and mobility. And often secular groups traded this for economic incentives and trade.

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.

I learned that victims come in all image - some raped, some witnessing an act of violence, some losing loved ones. I learned that the solutions come by both listening to the people impacted by the crisis and by learning from historical experiences in other places.