106 quotes found
"We must resist the notion that there is only one way to be a woman, one way to be African, and one way to be human."
"I think what the Nobel committee is doing is going beyond war and looking at what humanity can do to prevent war. Sustainable management of our natural resources will promote peace."
"(WHAT'S THE PLANET'S BIGGEST CHALLENGE?) The environment. We are sharing our resources in a very inequitable way. We have parts of the world that are very deprived and parts of the world that are very rich. And that is partly the reason why we have conflict."
"As I conclude I reflect on my childhood experience when I would visit a stream next to our home to fetch water for my mother. I would drink water straight from the stream. Playing among the arrowroot leaves I tried in vain to pick up the strands of frogs’ eggs, believing they were beads. But every time I put my little fingers under them they would break. Later, I saw thousands of tadpoles: black, energetic and wriggling through the clear water against the background of the brown earth. This is the world I inherited from my parents. Today, over 50 years later, the stream has dried up, women walk long distances for water, which is not always clean, and children will never know what they have lost. The challenge is to restore the home of the tadpoles and give back to our children a world of beauty and wonder."
"Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking."
"In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground- a time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now."
"We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own—indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder."
"Human rights are not things that are put on the table for people to enjoy. These are things you fight for and then you protect."
"The generation that destroys the environment is not the generation that pays the price. That is the problem."
"I’m very conscious of the fact that you can’t do it alone. It’s teamwork. When you do it alone you run the risk that when you are no longer there nobody else will do it."
"Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost. The future of the planet concerns all of us, and all of us should do what we can to protect it. As I told the foresters, and the women, you don't need a diploma to plant a tree."
"“In trying to explain this linkage, I was inspired by a traditional African tool that has three legs and a basin to sit on. To me the three legs represent three critical pillars of just and stable societies. The first leg stands for democratic space, where rights are respected, whether they are human rights, women's rights, children's rights, or environmental rights. The second represents sustainable and equitable management and resources. And the third stands for cultures of peace that are deliberately cultivated within communities and nations. The basin, or seat, represents society and its prospects for development. Unless all three legs are in place, supporting the seat, no society can thrive. Neither can its citizens develop their skills and creativity. When one leg is missing, the seat is unstable; when two legs are missing, it is impossible to keep any state alive; and when no legs are available, the state is as good as a failed state. No development can take place in such a state either. Instead, conflict ensues.”"
"“What people see as fearlessness is really persistence.”"
"“Hallowed landscapes lost their sacredness and were exploited as the local people became insensitive to the destruction, accepting it as a sign of progress.”"
"“You would see me there now, cultivating the earth and carrying firewood on my back up the hills to my home, where I would light a fire and cook the evening meal. I would not tell stories, because they have been replaced by books, the radio, and television”"
"“You don't need a diploma to plant a tree.”"
"No matter how dark the cloud, there is always a thin, silver lining, and that is what we must look for. The silver lining will come, if not to us then to next generation or the generation after that. And maybe with that generation the lining will no longer be thin."
". “African women in general need to know that it’s OK for them to be the way they are — to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.”"
"“Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own … Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come.”"
"nobody knows the solution to every problem; rather than blindly following the prescriptions of others, Africans need to think and act for themselves, and learn from their mistakes."
"We all share one planet and are one humanity; there is no escaping this reality."
"Trees are living symbols of peace and hope. A tree has roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that in order to aspire we need to be grounded and that no matter how high we go it is from our roots that we draw sustenance. It is a reminder to all of us who have had success that we cannot forget where we came from. It signifies that no matter how powerful we become in government or how many awards we receive, our power and strength and our ability to reach our goals depend on the people, those whose work remain unseen, who are the soil out of which we grow, the shoulders on which we stand."
"I don't really know why I care so much. I just have something inside me that tells me that there is a problem, and I have got to do something about it. I think that is what I would call the God in me. All of us have a God in us, and that God is the spirit that unites all life, everything that is on this planet. It must be this voice that is telling me to do something, and I am sure it's the same voice that is speaking to everybody on this planet — at least everybody who seems to be concerned about the fate of the world, the fate of this planet."
"I kept stumbling and falling and stumbling and falling as I searched for the good. 'Why?' I asked myself. Now I believe that I was on the right path all along, particularly with the Green Belt Movement, but then others told me that I shouldn't have a career, that I shouldn't raise my voice, that women are supposed to have a master. That I needed to be someone else. Finally I was able to see that if I had a contribution I wanted to make, I must do it, despite what others said. That I was OK the way I was. That it was all right to be strong."
"The people are starving. They need food; they need medicine; they need education. They do not need a skyscraper to house the ruling party and a 24-hour TV station."
"Peace on earth depends on our ability to secure our living environment. Maathai stands at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She has taken a holistic approach to sustainable development that embraces democracy, human rights and women's rights in particular. She thinks globally and acts locally."
"I think academia is just still very conservative in the way that people are hired and promoted."
"The idea that there is bullying in academia isn’t new to anybody, but the discussion of it is new and the idea that you don’t have to put up with it is new. It’s important that students and junior members of staff know that because they are often the most vulnerable."
"Attitudes are changing, but there are still pockets in academia that definitely see having children and a successful career as incompatible."
"It really matters that you work with people who have the same values as you, and who are genuinely interested in creating a good working environment."
"We can try and manage our own careers, but it’s very different to trying to manage other people’s."
"I’m very conscious that diversity is sometimes skewed to a very narrow interpretation- it’s generally gender diversity, so racial, social class and other forms of diversity get put on the back foot. That is changing, but it’s changing very slowly."
"I left friends and colleagues behind, not sure whether they were going to be OK. I didn’t want to leave, I didn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t ever think that I would see dead people in the streets, or face threats of physical violence. It was a very, very dark time."
"You find yourself wondering what makes a society work and why this society is different to another one."
"Everything started to feel like it was falling apart. Kenya was the main location for my PhD and it didn’t look like I was going to be able to go back safely."
"My time away on maternity leave had really been seen as writing me off. ‘That’s it now, we might never see her again,’ that kind of attitude. I found that very difficult."
"I was fortunate enough to work on two long-term projects which gave me quite a lot of security. I did try for PhDs in that time, but either there wasn’t anything that I was overly interested in, or the things I was interested in I wasn’t successful in getting."
"I was going into people’s houses where there were really challenging social problems. Those kinds of challenges really made me question the data I was collecting and why."
"The wheels came off completely. I felt like I had to start from scratch."
"I was trying to find other places in Africa to continue my work. Wellcome were supportive – 'If you need to go to another location, if you need to have interruption of studies'. At the same time I felt like I really should go back [to Kenya]. I owed it to the people I was working with who had spent hours of their time with me. Then Wellcome were really helpful in supporting me to find another supervisor as well."
"It really matters that you work with people who have the same values as you, and who are genuinely interested in creating a good working environment. I think some academic institutions and departments can be quite dysfunctional, with egos and difficult personalities, and nothing creative can grow in that environment."
"And that’s the key thing, you can have a great institution with great policies but a line manager who absolutely doesn’t recognise that you are human, and that you are capable of having a family and doing your research well."
"It sounds all really easy, but actually I didn’t have a plan for any of this. I don’t have academics in my family, so I had no example of how this is supposed to work. It’s very difficult for me, but I’ve been really fortunate to do something I genuinely like. I can put in the extra hours, and I don’t mind doing lots of reading or teaching because I genuinely like it."
"As a black woman from a single-parent, working-class background I’m very conscious that diversity is sometimes skewed to a very narrow interpretation – it’s generally gender diversity, so racial, social class and other forms of diversity get put on the back foot. That is changing, but it’s changing very slowly."
"I’ve had all sorts of horrible experiences where I’ve tried to speak to a head of department and they’ve just said, 'This is part of what you have to deal with.' I don’t think anybody would ever be so blasé about it now. I think it’s changing, but I don’t know to what extent or whether it’s changing quickly enough."
"It was a huge leap up,but I didn’t think about it too much because I would find a way to talk myself out of doing it."
"I thought 'the worst that can happen is that they say I’m not ready', which is fine. For me everything was about the idea – if the idea is strong then you can find ways to provide the infrastructure for it."
"I didn’t want to just launch into something and reinvent the wheel, I wanted to find out some of the issues they had, so that I could try and set my project up in the best possible way. That’s been really helpful and people were really generous with their time."
"Most academics don’t have a lot of management experience or training. We can try and manage our own careers, but it’s very different to trying to manage other people’s. We can try and manage our own careers, but it’s very different to trying to manage other people’s."
"This is an exciting time, and that’s what gives me energy. "I’m really happy that I’ve stuck with sociology. I love what I do and I have done since I was 14 years old and I picked up my first sociology book. The idea that I can do this for a living is just so wild."
"Africa has challenges because of its diversity, and that could also be its strength."
"...to understand that Africa has resources. Its greatest resource is in its people. How you see us as solving the problem together with you, and positioning yourselves to be facilitators of this process, rather than fixing us, might be one way that we could begin to solve these problems."
"A lot of what we do is affected by our cultural way of doing things. If we engage with African people, they would be able to help us think about their culture and how it affects farming."
"You can break every ceiling or be a better version of yourself ."
"Success is when you live a purposeful life, an intentional life and creating a positive impact on other people’s lives."
"Life will always offer many more chances, so when they come your way, grab them."
"Getting a first class is not as hard as people think! It actually depends on you as a person. You must be motivated by something or someone greater."
"A degree can be just a paper, what matters is whether or not you can deliver."
"Everything is business. Whatever profession you are in, you can still open a business in that field. Even if you don’t do it today you can still go into business after you retire."
"Everybody can take everything from you, but they cannot take what is in your head. Even if they burn your certificate, you will still have the knowledge and skills."
"Students from private colleges drop out of school because they are sidelined by Higher Education Loan Board (Helb), unlike their counterparts in Public universities and colleges and private universities."
"I am attentive to power in knowledge production and transfer processes and explore these dynamics through my methodological and pedagogical choices""
"How people experience the impact of harmful laws that criminalise behaviour is directly impacted by their racial, gender, and class positioning in [their] societies.”="
"You cannot think about being a woman only from the perspective of being a woman."
"The work that we should be doing is to excavate, to rethink the very robust and broad ways that our societies understood gender."
"My feminist politics evolved from childhood as I was raised in a family of strong women."
"I continue to be involved in civil society activism on women's rights and believe in fusing academic research and 'practical' activism."
"There is no age when you cannot use technology. A professor at my university asked me if, at 70, he was too old to learn technology. I told him no, technology is accessible to everyone – and these days that professor carries a laptop. As long as somebody gives you the confidence you can do it. This is what is so mis- sing from so many of our girls. They need confidence. We need to de-mystify technology, there is nothing hard about using a computer."
"Great institutions are built through vision, hard work and dedication. That is what I am driven by. In leadership, you rarely look down upon a person because they are either a man or woman. Both do complement each other."
"When Kenya’s history is fully documented and shared between the people, we will be surprised at how similar were the risks we all took in various parts of the country to liberate ourselves from the colonial yoke."
"Both of us were children of resisters, human rights defenders and change makers."
"Mĩcere demonstrated that Black African girls were capable of learning, taking leadership and winning in a multiracial setting."
"We both saw a sista in one another and from there we have shared much in our careers of knowledge building and teaching, and in our acts of rebellion against all forms of oppression."
"Their economic growth is hence blocked by the energy crisis. Due to their heavy dependence on biomass – mainly firewood, crop residues, and animal dung – they deprive the soil of essential nutrients and pose a threat to the agricultural lands due to deforestation and the resulting soil erosion."
"The problem of rural energy, therefore places the provision of food and other basic needs at risk. A technology which extracts a more useful and convenient form of fuel from biomass without destroying its fertilizer value than the traditional conversion method of direct combustion is highly desirable"
"Anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues generates biogas which can be used directly for lighting, cooking, electricity generation, or to power an IC engine for water pumping or milling. The remaining sludge forms a good fertilizer."
"Throughout the campaign experience, I have remained conscious that the ILC is a subsidiary organ of the UN that is at its most effective working in collaboration with the sixth committee. I look forward to working with the other members of the commission and those on the Sixth Committee as the commission continues its vital work in responding to the defining challenges of our generation."
"I grew up around land cases … there was always a deep sense of frustration, so I have to say from that moment I was very much inculcated into the idea that law could both be an instrument of oppression but an instrument of social justice."
"There has been tremendous progress especially in educating the girl child and building their capacity to enable them sit in the same employment or activity spaces as men. However there is still a lot to be done especially for women in rural areas."
"Women in urban areas are more exposed to education and opportunities to grow them. This is not the case for many women in rural areas hence some are trapped in situations that forever limit their capabilities of being the best version of themselves."
"Women are key in holding a family together. Families are essential for the development and sustenance of society as a whole."
"In as much as we empower women to seek employment or business opportunities like men, education on the traditional values are equally important."
"The species was previously thought not to exist in Kenya, so this discovery has thrust Kenya once again into the limelight as the home of one of the most important archaeological discovered. That A. Afarensis existed in Highlands as well as lowland Savannah shows that it was very adaptable"
"For the last seven years, I have been involved in research at Kantis Fossil Site (KFS), a new paleontological site on the outskirts of Nairobi city in Kenya. KFS is dated to 3.5 million years and lies on banks of a seasonal river known as Kantis river, situated on a privately owned farm."
"The site is located on eastern arm of the Rift Valley (01.39077 S, 36.72365 E), with an elevation of 1746 meters above sea level. Although the presence of bone bed was noted in the geological survey of the Nairobi area in 1991, no systematic research had been conducted in this area prior to 2009."
"At the time of reporting the site, the farm owner noted his family first saw fossilized bones valley in the mid-1970’s, but at that time the importance of the fossils as part of our national heritage was not appreciated in Kenya."
"While abortion remains a stigmatised health care matter, progress has definitely been made with the adoption of the Maputo Protocol on several issues related to gender equality and gender rights. . Speaking about challenges in implementing the Maputo Protocol for your country context."
"The Maputo Protocol has helped to address harmful cultural practices, support women's and girls’ empowerment through education and employment, promote economic safety nets, and work towards a zero-rate unmet family planning needs and a zero-rate preventable maternal deaths. It has also promoted the need to pay attention to vulnerable and marginalised populations such as people living with HIV, people living with disabilities, humanitarian crises, urban informal and rural populations, adolescents and youth.. Still speaking about challenges in implementing the Maputo Protocol for your country context."
"Strengthening access to safe abortion are requires a multi-tier approach, which must include:"
"The Livingstone Safe Abortion Care Charter focuses on seven key priority areas that OBGYNs identified to address the scale of unsafe abortion – a leading cause of preventable maternal deaths and disabilities."
"Patriarchy is not an archaic relic but a living, breathing structure that is co-constitutive with capitalist exploitation. The crisis of social reproduction we see today is a direct result of this partnership."
"The labor that produces life—the cooking, cleaning, caring, and nurturing—is the invisible infrastructure upon which all other 'productive' economic activity depends. To ignore it is not just an oversight; it is an ideological commitment."
"Our political imaginations have been captured by the very structures we seek to dismantle. A feminist politics must be, first and foremost, a project of decolonizing our desires for power and freedom."
"Lyn Ossome's work relentlessly exposes the gendered fault lines of capitalist accumulation in Africa. She forces us to see that the 'economy' cannot be understood without centering the violence and valorization of social reproduction."
"I think that as women, we need a movement. You can’t do it by bureaucracy. Though we have the constitution, which we have all worked for and has set the trend towards equality, we need to look and ask, “what’s holding us up?"
"The old model of saying the man is the breadwinner and the woman is the homemaker is gone. We really have to create a new model for women to move out. The model should also sensitise a husband to see that, if she goes out, the family is still protected."
"The power of numbers, the intellectual capacity of women, and the lobbying capacity that women possess will help them enter those spaces and get what they want. We cannot relax before we reach our destination. We must rise again and march forward."
"We don’t want to be equal with men in an oppressive environment. Numbers do not tell it all. MPs can be 50:50 in parliament (fifty per cent women and fifty per cent men). This balance means nothing if people are going to bed hungry. That is not the environment that we want. We need an environment of social transformation, so I said we need to change the institutions. We need to change legislation to have both men and women are living like human beings."
"Patriarchal leadership styles are hierarchical, and until this paradigm shifts, women will be excluded from leadership in their religious spaces."
"The potential of laying the foundation for the rise of a planetary counter-hegemony."
"If we are to rethink foreign aid, as AfricAvenir is suggesting and as we discussed in the dialogue forum and the workshop today, we need to move beyond the language of ‘help’ to think of moral obligations to justice if we are serious about addressing historical and contemporary injustices not just in Africa but elsewhere in the world."
"We were looking for someone who could bring administrative experience, interdisciplinary research excellence and their international worldview to our Integrated Engineering program. We are lucky to now have Shahryar leading Engineering at Brock. He is already actively involved in moving the department forward."
"I am interested in research on efficient design and application of computational intelligence techniques especially evolutionary computation genetic algorithms and genetic programming, swarm intelligence, especially on particle swarm optimization, and artificial neural networks. A major application area is in optimization with a focus on combinatorial optimization, multi objective optimization, and optimization in dynamic environments."
"Lately I am also interested in complex networks from two angles. That is, using genetic programming for the automatic inference of graph models for complex networks, and developing fast algorithms to determine critical nodes in complex networks."
"Parents who provided more learning and playing materials reported that their children did better."
"The fact that they are always surrounded by people may have benefited them somehow."