Do you know that people fall in love in war and go to school and go to factories and hospitals and get divorced and go dancing and go playing and live life?

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.

Like life, peace begins with women. We are the first to forge lines of alliance and collaboration across conflict divides.

From joblessness to lack of education and professional skills to sexual and gender-based violence, women face a multi-faceted oppression.

Women are part of peace keeping troops in countries like Liberia.

Working with women survivors of war has taught me that we need to listen to women's perspectives on war in order to understand how to effectively rebuild a country, a community and a family.

One year of the world’s military spending equals 700 years of the U.N. budget and equals 2,928 years of the U.N. budget allocated for women.