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

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.

Believe in your passions and act on them.

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.

Everything can be taken from you in a second, but the human spirit is so strong. War can teach you so much about evil, and so much about good.

I believe that there is an urgent need to restructure the discussion of war to include the impact it has on women.

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.