"I want to sensitise the Rwandan Diaspora, especially the youth about embracing Rwandan values as their identity because wherever they are, they portray Rwanda’s image ."

"Miss Rwanda is not only an initiative that promotes our culture; it also gives girls a platform to air out what they can do and creates confidence among them. It is through this that girls are able to do more for their country ."

"It was a great honour and pleasure for a young lady like me representing most of my country's generation to partner with such a large institution as UNESCO. I presented to them my projects and they were very interested and ready to work with me ."

"Being in a mixed science school is the ultimate test of your survival."

"Daddy, you lived your time. This is our period, our children’s period. We don’t want to kill our children. I hope you are wise enough to accept that."

"When my first results came, Eighty per cent of the girls had between A and B-. Soon the girls were writing to tell me that though they admired my work, they felt I was destined for bigger things."

"From birth they need equal opportunities to help them understand that their intrinsic value is the same as men. Education is key, even though they are expected to follow in their mothers’ footsteps and perform household chores for their entire lives. It’s working. Just last week we awarded 390 girls with above a 3.5 grade point average. They will go to university. If a girl is given an equal footing, she will find her own space and voice in life."

"Women were regarded as no better than the cows they milked, My mother’s life was a nightmare. I don’t know how she survived. She was a very intelligent, very wise woman, but all her life she was abused and beaten – for nothing. She had her back stooped, her legs broken, her jaw broken, even though she did everything right."

"I am from them. I speak from reality. I touch their reality."

"I will keep doing it whether you put me in jail, or you kill me. I'll die doing what I believe."

"Yes, I could have had a better house and gone jogging on the beach or gone to a spa every weekend, But is that what life is all about? Could I have stayed there knowing my sisters were being cut and abducted and turned into servants?"

"When speaking to women about equality, it was a total awakening. When they said they have no recourse if their husbands beat them, I explained their constitutional, legal and human rights. We learned how to link the political, economic and social problems that affect women’s lives. They have the capacity to change. But real change must happen within communities. Everyone must teach each other and learn that what is good for women and girls is good for the community."

"In the long run, stronger women create stronger communities, stronger women create a stronger nation, and stronger women create a stronger Africa."

"There is no prescription. You make a commitment, then everything you do speaks to you if you are willing to listen. For social change, you must go to the people, to really listen to them and learn from them. It is all about commitment. As a young girl when I spoke to elders, I had to look at their feet, not their faces. As an adult, I stood in front of a congregation of 800 men, women and children. I said female genital mutilation is not prescribed in the Bible or the Koran. So where did the practice come from? Why are we ‘correcting’ God’s work? Everything is contextual."

"I tell them my own story—how I grew up, went to school, how I struggled, and how I was mutilated."

"That's a great question to ask here in America. Because there were times when people didn't believe that women are capable to be leaders at all."

"But this is exactly the same. How can one judge me and say what, I was too smart for my age? I think that is what is praised in America. When a young person takes his or her destiny in his own hands and fights."

"Look, this is-- I think it's an American, very old saying that suggests that wolves have teeth, but not all animals with teeth are wolves. You cannot judge a person based on appearance."

"The women of Kenya have made Kenya proud through our athletes, the late Wangari Maathai, and the rest. I am so overjoyed because the women have done it."

"And this doesn’t only concern Aleksei Navalny. Where are last year’s laureates – the Belarusian opposition – now? Mostly in prison. Where is the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Lui Xiaobo? He died in prison."

"No matter how many people try to deceive themselves, hoping that another madman who clings to power will behave decently in response to concessions and flirtations, it will never happen."

"Why is it so hard to free from captivity those who are fighting for human rights? Why are they still thrown in jail, not only all over the world, but in European – geographically European – countries in the 21st century?"

"Who see Africa as an investment frontier and want to explore the market."

"The vision is shared as we to want to have partners coming to Africa and doing business in the continent."

"The fact that they blindly follow orders to kill a person just because he doesn’t agree with the way our state works – that shows that Putin fears my father. And that my father is doing something right! I do fear for his life, but it also means: He is doing something right."

"It was clear: He [Alexei Navalny] doesn’t run away from his problems."

"You have to show yourself to the people and not just get yourself nominated as a candidate and then not campaign anymore. People have to be able to see who you are and the values that you represent."

"Data is a currency in African."

"We, the citizens, will decide who is going to rule our country and for how long."

"The very essence of authoritarian power involves a constant increase in bets, an increase in aggression, and the search for new enemies."

"In the next fifteen years, I believe technology and finance will change the lives of millions of girls across the world, like it changed mine and that of my friends Barbara in Uganda, Ndeye Awa in Senegal and Lorene in Kinshasa - women who today are also helping to educate girls by teaching them to code.""

"one imperative solution is to educate entrepreneurs on understanding basic business principles. They need honest mentoring in order to scale their businesses - this is really lacking at present.""

"I think for years we were not able to measure progress but now we can."

"When we arrived, Eldoret had only one building, of mud and wattle, which was the bank, post office, and rest house combined. My father built the first shop of wood and iron in the main street for J.H.S. Todd, and they stocked everything needed for farmers. It had a lovely wide verandah back and front, and I always said this building was the start of my interest in architecture."

"They are walking in the flower garden, and what are they singing? Something rather merry and mocking; the veering breeze blows up a few words now and then to the ears of a lady behind green bathroom blinds. (beginning of "O Stay and Hear")"

"Now that she was sitting in Central Park, wrapped in furs, looking very beautiful, as always...now that she watched with reminiscent eyes the antics of her baby girl in oozing March snow...now that her car was due to call for them in half-an-hour...she brooded, almost with complacence, on the memory of that other park. (beginning of "Parks")"

"Her poetry is full-blown, lush, often touched with a melancholy for home."

"Now why, you may ask, does this Anglo-Saxon looking little woman represent three and three-quarter million island peoples who are mainly coloured persons of African and mixed descent. I will tell you. My friends, I was elected by a large majority of coloured people this year, and I represent them in the West Indian House of Representatives, our Parliament. I regard, therefore, that election and my ministerial appointment as a triumph of tolerance over skin-deep differences, and even over historical prejudices. May I add that it is a triumph of tolerance over creed as well as race."

"Journalism is a different experience to writing for me. It's not romantic enough for me."

"They may strip us Federal Ministers and Members of honourable dues and even tie me to the stake in rags, but no one can deprive me of the signal and irrevocable honour of having been the first woman Minister in the Federal Government of the West Indies. Let the rains fall on dry lands and holy feathers drop from the sky — the traces of our passage will not be obliterated."

"Her delicate touch, discerning eye and a heart wise to the human condition animate these stories. Falls Into Place will confirm Allfrey's major contribution to the development of West Indian literature..."

""When are you going to put me into a story, Philip?" (beginning of "It Falls Into Place")"

"My poems are the best part of me."

"When you are involved in activism, your goal is never to get rewarded but to create impact and change."

"We should be agitated for change, especially the many things that don’t work as opposed to sitting back, moaning and groaning."

"I have used my voice to give the voiceless a voice."

"My philosophy is that in life you either succeed or learn."

"Things that change your life are the people you meet and the books you read."

"When you find a network of people who are thinking alike with a common desire to bring change, you achieve a lot."

"Citizens must take charge"