Women still need higher political representation and to be included at decision making tables in all issues in order for solutions that relates from peace to food, to health, to basic stability in the world. We cannot continue to marginalize half of the population in the world in finding sustainable solutions that are good for all.

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

War is nothing but a microcosm of peace... it shows you life in a more intense way and that's how I continue to live it... for good or bad reasons.

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.

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.

Since war often enters homes through the "kitchen door," we need to understand women's attempts to keep life going in the face of shortage of food, closing of schools and reduced freedoms.

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