Women Activists

"The UN and its member-states should conduct international peace and security reform to create guarantees for all countries and their citizens, regardless of their participation or non-participation in military blocs or military capacity. Russia should be excluded from the UN Security Council for systematic violations of the UN charter."

"Talking of the so-called Russian mass media, it has been obvious to me over these years that it is part of Russia’s military and industrial complex. They work exclusively for military purposes, they incite hatred, they program people to kill, they create an image of the enemy."

""Time to take responsibility: Speech by Oleksandra Matviychuk at Nobel Peace Prize awarding ceremony", UkrInform, 10 December 2022"

"It’s very dangerous to live in the world where your security depends not on the rule of law but on whether your country is a part of a military bloc. That’s a dangerous line of development for humankind."

"We can’t end the war on our own, but nothing will change without the efforts of each individual. We will pay a high price to finally break away from the Russian civilizational space with its culture, where there is no gender equality, with its dominant violence. We need to prepare for a long marathon that we will win."

"Justice is costly, but it is also priceless."

"The problem of the Russian nation is that Russians have this imperialistic code, as a driver of their existence. I wish Russians could overcome this side of their nature. It’s a necessity, if Russians are to be happy and successful."

"So, in this war, we are fighting for freedom in all senses: the freedom to be an independent state, not a colony of Russia; the freedom to be Ukrainians, to have our own language and culture, as other nations of the world do; the freedom to have a democratic choice — a chance to build a country where the judiciary is independent, human rights are protected, the government is accountable, and the police serve the people."

"My first language was Russian. I switched to the Ukrainian language in school when I started to learn Ukrainian history and Ukrainian literature. I suddenly understood that my parents spoke Russian not because it was their choice but because they had been forced into it."

"First of all, I know Ukraine’s history. We have been fighting for freedom for hundreds of years, and we will never give up. Second, I know the Ukrainian people. Putin underestimated us, and so did the West."

"Like sometimes I feel myself that we are documenting pain, which burned us out, but parallel, I see and feel the huge wave of solidarity among the people in Ukraine and abroad. And ordinary people start to do unordinary things. And this energy can change a lot."

"There are people who will fight for you, who will fight for your rights, who will never leave you alone. And this understanding provides a coverage to continue the fight. And let my lessons learn from this story is that in many part of the world, human rights defenders, they’re not working in human rights field. They’re fighting for human rights. And sometimes because of the size of challenges this fight, it seems that they have no sense. But we have to continue our fight honestly, and result will unexpectedly be achieved."

"All my twenty years experience of defense, freedom and human rights shows me that common people have a much greater impact than they can even imagine. And massive mobilisation of the common people can change the world history quicker than UN intervention."

"This award [Nobel Peace Prize] have two dimensions. The first dimension is connecting with award to not only to Ukrainian human rights organisation, Center for Civil Liberties, but to the whole Ukrainian people who are fighting for freedom in all senses. And second dimension is award for human rights defenders who, regardless of their authoritarian regimes, tries to build horizontal ties between each other in order to protect freedom and human rights in our part of the world where Russia try to occupy new territories."

"This story is about resistance to common evil, about the fact that freedom has no borders, and the values ​​of human rights are universal. That human rights defenders build invisible horizontal connections in their societies to assert freedom and protect people in our part of the world, in which a monster is once again trying to rule. And who will lose sooner or later. And then peace will come. In no way should this award sound like an old narrative about fraternal nations. This story is about something else. This story is about the motto that I heard from my teacher, dissident and philosopher Yevhen Sverstyuk – “For our freedom and yours”"

"We call on the international community to become their voice and join us in seeking their release. As well as the release of all political prisoners who fought against the authoritarian regimes in Russia and Belarus."

"The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to all people in Ukraine who are currently fighting for freedom in all its senses. For the freedom to be a free and independent state. For the freedom to develop the Ukrainian language and culture. For the freedom to have one’s own democratic choice and to build a country in which the rights of every person are protected, the government is accountable, the courts are independent, and the police do not beat peaceful student demonstrations."

"I hope that we will be able to overcome the rage, because sooner or later the war will finish, and we will have to continue building a civilized world. Maybe, in such a crisis, you go beyond some borders like nationality or region, because we are humans. We see ourselves now like people who are fighting for freedom, for human values. For us it doesn’t matter if you are Ukrainians or not. We closely cooperate with Russian human-rights defenders, with Belarusian human-rights defenders. We understand their willingness to help is because we are all human."

"We live in a very interconnected workld and only spreading freedom can make our world safer. And if political leaders will not take this historical responsibility, people can take this historical responsibility. All of my experience as a human rights defender has showed me that ordinary people have much greater impact than they can even imagine. And massive mobilization of ordinary people around the world can change the world’s history much more quickly than any UN intervention."

"We live in very dramatic times, and political leaders of the world have to take historical responsibility because for decades, I’ve seen that political leaders behave like they believe the problems we face will vanish. But the truth is that these problems will not vanish. They have to take responsibility and to solve these problems for the next generation and not think only about the electoral period or the future of their own parties."

"Everything the UN stands for is at stake in Ukraine. If Putin is allowed to succeed, a new world will be born, in which larger states will once again be able to invade their neighbors with impunity. A brief period in human history, when the settled sovereign will of the people served as the basis for government, will end. Neo-imperial revisionist powers will create “spheres of influence” using economic pressure, political capture, disinformation, and military coercion to turn smaller neighbors into vassals. A world that is more open, connected, and safer will give way to one that is more closed, fragmented, and violent."

"I see from the general mood in the country that Ukrainians share the dream to rebuild our country and our destroyed cities together. They are committed to the successful democratic transformation of our country after the war. This dream encourages all of us to continue our struggle."

"Women are currently represented in all areas of the country’s defence. Women serve in the Ukrainian army. Women have joined territorial defence units. Women take important political decisions. Women provide medical care. Women document Russian war crimes. You can see a significant number of women in every field of the social resistance to this invasion. At least in times of war, we suddenly seem to have gender equality in Ukraine. Women are currently at the forefront of the battle, equal to men."

"I don’t know what is in store for me or my family or my colleagues or my friends. But I know for sure that Ukraine will resist because we are fighting for our country, for our dignity, for our people, for our values. Russia tried to return us to the past which does not exist at all. We will never be a part of a restored Soviet Union. Putin will lose sooner or later."

"We live in a very interconnected world. … We can’t build fences and close our eyes to real problems of human rights in our world."

"Please include me on the list of foreign agents of my dear country, as I agree with my husband, an honest, decent and genuine man, a real patriot of Russia who cannot be bought, who wishes prosperity, peaceful life, freedom of speech to his Homeland and who wants our boys to stop dying for illusory goals that make our country a pariah and that make the lives of our citizens harder."

"Forbes - at the #ForbesUnder30 Summit in Botswana, Ouma Sekokole (April 2022)"

"Summiting Everest (And Africa’s Cancer Crisis) | Forbes Under 30 Africa (May 2022)"

"As a climber, it's not about the summit, it's about the process"

"You need to have your ability to explore your human potential, which needs a lot of discipline, focus, positivity and removing all the negativity that is around you"

"What they have taught me and what I take from their lives is this real ability to go beyond yourself and to dedicate your life to the common good, to create spaces and opportunities for freedom for all."

"People say I am powerful but I care more about impactful – in the work I do with children, adolescents, women or even institutions. Those who observe can say, ‘you are powerful,’ but it doesn’t come from me to say I am powerful."

"Women are not children; they are adults that know what they want to do. They should be recognised with their dignity and to start a business whenever they feel like it."

"“When you educate a girl, you educate a nation.”"

"To ensure that we achieve the goals for our development by 2063 we need to fully invest in and optimize of the continent’s other half which for too long has been neglected: the African female."

"Education, particularly for girls, is a catalyst for reducing child and maternal deaths and lifting people out of poverty."

"Investing in education from early childhood has a lasting effect on the survival, development, protection and active participation of children in social, economic and political activities."

"African women need to be in the driving seat of national discourse,women need to be at the centre of our economies,they must also pro-actively seek to correct the status quo."

"Africa’s socio-economic transformation will only be realized once we aggressively address gender-specific challenges, prioritize gender equality and women’s participation, and firmly entrench women in leadership positions at all levels in society."

"We must reinvent our relationships and re-engineer the way we relate in our families, in our schools, in our workplaces with the spirit of ubuntu that Archbishop Tutu taught us and exudes with every fibre of his being."

"These are the beautiful faces,the brilliant minds and vibrant voices of our daughters, nieces, sisters, whose childhood and innocence we have left unprotected, and these shocking statistics on teenage pregnancy do not even paint an accurate nor comprehensive picture of our shameful disregard for young people we claim to love and cherish."

"The role tradition has played in the relationship in the family between men and women has been detrimental to women."

"We have to change our mindsets, our behaviours, our value system."

"We are proving that we can come together as a united human family to holistically tackle COVID-19, let us apply an equally comprehensive, vigorous, and unrelenting focus to eradicating gender-based violence as well."

"A pandemic within a pandemic has been exposed and we are confronted with the horrific reality that millions of women and children — in every country — are fighting for their survival, not just from COVID-19 but from the brutalities of abusers in the prisons of their homes."

"The problem is not the consequences of what’s happening, it’s the root causes of why and how we got where we are as a society.”"

"Tradition has developed into practices which overtime have become beliefs which in essence they put women in a position of inferiority."

"We are a society where women, and children by the way, are not safe anywhere. Something absolutely and deeply wrong is happening in our society."

"It is not just fear of a husband that makes a woman bow to these traditions. They are ingrained in her from her upbringing, the women learn to accept as if it's normal."

"Culture for me is when you sing or dance, when you have theatre, when you read a book, a beautiful poem. It doesn't matter whether it's Shakespeare who wrote it or whether it is an African poet – it is communicating with all of us, regardless of who you are, your colour, your social structure."