Women Born In The 1960s

"Today’s problems are complex and require a variety of viewpoints to innovate new solutions. Diversity can be seen in different ways: gender, race, disability, but also in discipline and thought process."

"The geosciences are of growing importance to addressing societal concerns about climate change, natural resources, geohealth, ocean security, and food and water security, among other things."

"We are seeing the need for veteran athletes to come together, to advice and to support each other."

"My father used to say the person who writes the story shapes our consciousness. So it’s not just about whose stories get told, but it’s about if you are writing the story yourself, if it’s your story, if it’s your experience, the power of that is enormous. Because our stories have been written for us and they’ve been re-written. And many times we’ve been written out."

"From love we can invoke the courage to dance with our fear. Inherent dignity is our individual and collective birth right that underpins substantive rights. When we forget our birth right, as we often do, we can look in the mirror of ourselves, of each other, or let the rising sun remind us of the radiance we were born with"

"Without seeing the dignity in those who bear the brunt of gender-based violence, the result will be a narrow focus on the criminal justice system and not the root causes of the problem, and how we have to address this to change the reality of our own country and our world"

"It’s about harnessing the power we all have within us and begin to practise moving that power. It’s about seeing the dignity in others and [seeing how] the quality of what we create together becomes substantially different"

"Some people said that apartheid disappeared after removing the signs that said ‘non-Europeans’ … but the structural institutional roots of it remained. When we begin to get insubordinate, we begin to get to the roots of things. Oppressive systems thrive in our subordination"

"We can reclaim ourselves by recognising that love is intrinsic to our being. From it we can invoke the courage to dance with our fear"

"There is wisdom in the everyday beauty of fragile complex beings grappling with contradiction"

"I want to incite insubordination against this in each of us. Like you, I have felt the fear and hate of subordination land on my skin, course through my blood, unsettle my nerves… its paralysis, impotent rage and helplessness"

"The impending destruction of humanity and our planet, presented by climate scientists, does not penetrate the thick wall of denial and inaction, with devastating consequences for people who are poor, especially women"

"This is where depression regularly ends in suicide and there is no place to run for women, girls, transgendered and gender non-conforming people"

"God is male – male is god’ is deeply embedded in the human psyche. Those taught to be subordinate are female and those taught to expect subordination are male. The world order mirrors apartheid and has deepened inequality and poverty. Economic, military and religious fundamentalism have increased vulnerability to misogyny, and rape and sexual abuse will affect an estimated one billion women and girls over their lifetimes"

"In our country, as in all others, rape and sexual assault have been interwoven into wars of patriarchal conquest and colonisation, genocide, slavery, apartheid and capitalism. Religious texts justify violence against women and children"

"Share [your] personal intergenerational stories of [your] forebears who had defied race, culture, gender and power"

"That’s how Power Systems work. They set up divisions between us. One of the most powerful things is reclaiming that connection"

"Power Systems work to fragment us. They fragment us as individual beings. And they set up these hierarchies – the hierarchy of the body, mind, heart, spirit; hierarchies of race, colour, and gender, and they set up these divisions within and between us"

"It’s really people who exploit the earth and humanity with fairly little consequence and then set themselves up as the people with the solution or who will fund the solutions"

"When we were fighting against apartheid, we recognised it wasn’t just a racist state. It was a racist, capitalist and patriarchal state. And we have to understand that. So how do we actually fight against that? How do we change that"

"When I wrote Love and Courage, the Story of Insubordination, I was not just telling the story of some isolated individual operating in a bubble. It was really about my learning about the power of love and how to connect, to draw courage and be insubordinate, to injustice and to systems of injustice"

"I realize without doubt that her exit will leave you, members of the family and the university community with considerable trauma following the unexpected occurrence."

"Why am I taking part? Because I love to dance. And whether I can dance well—I'm like those who sing in the shower. I think I can dance well, but we’ll see in a few days if it’s really the case."

"I'm proud of our name because my brother has really carried our name up there ... it's made its mark in the world."

"He wanted to know everything about us, everything about my father everything about our family. I took him to so many relatives. It was part of finding about his own identity."

"How can you tear-gas your own people? Listen to them. Listen to these children; they’re the future."

"I can’t believe that these young people are just trying to demonstrate for their rights and to tell them that we understand that they need to use their voices, and we are being tear-gassed. We’re being teargassed! We have flags and banners, nothing else."

"It's special for us and for our children and for our communities because it tells every child that if you work hard you can do whatever you want in this world. You can make you future"

"Once others hear your voice loud and clear, they realise you exist."

"Poverty is no excuse. Development aid has to be linked to economic development,"

"You can’t do this or that because you’re a girl. Or, You have to do this because you’re a girl. I asked Why? I’m a human being first."

"If I’m teaching young people to use their voices and be active in making their lives a success."

"I don’t get tired of being called Barack Obama’s sister because I am. I get tired of being called Barack Obama’s “half-sister” because I’m not. In our culture he’s just my brother, I’m his sister, so being called Barack Obama’s sister, I have no problem with that at all. I guess it becomes an issue when people see me as an extension of him and focus on that. So I guess this sense of “we’re inviting Barack Obama’s sister”, “we’re speaking to Barack Obama’s sister” to get closer to Barack Obama and find out more about him. To an extent it is justified, but that’s not all that I’m about, so I’m very conscious of that, and I’m conscious of making people aware of that and trying to make that clear that is part of the conversation."

"I manage that because Barack Obama’s in his present situation as the president of the United States is a very new thing, and it’s also something very temporary. I’ve been around for a lot longer, so I’ve already defined myself long before he became the president of the United States so in my own right I have my own identity. So in that sense I am able to, well, actually I’m learning, and I keep having to adjust to being Barack Obama’s sister, who is the president of the United States. But being me as Auma Obama, that is not an issue. It’s trying to accommodate the “new” – this new role that I’m received in, the attention I get, this visibility I get. In terms of my identity I think I’m pretty secure, as best one can be."

"I had really nobody in my family whom I could talk about these things with. This passion for making a difference, the passion for helping young people find out who they are, gain strength in their own identity, those were things I was struggling with as well. I realized very young that if I don’t do it myself, nobody can really do it for me. I think young people need to be helped toward that realization."

"I work for my own foundation, called Sauti Kuu (Powerful Voices) Foundation, which I started about two years ago. The focus of the work is to teach young people—girls, in particular—who are from underprivileged backgrounds, that there are valuable resources they can use to improve their lives before they look outwardly to see whether someone will give them relief food or clothing or all of the other things we give them so often in the humanitarian world."

"If it’s just about my brother, I’ll never be a role model."

"My brother is authentic. He really believes in what he is trying to do. So there’s no hidden agenda. In that sense, he really is an open book. And I think that authenticity, that passion, and the image and the drive—it resonates with people."

"I felt a kinship with him automatically. I was very nervous and worried about not connecting immediately and then having to be in his home—because I was going to be staying with him. But when I met him it was so easy. We just started talking as though we’d known each other always, and that was actually something really special."

"Germans always like to think that they have a very liberal attitude towards Africans. But when you scratch the surface you can see that they they still carry around the prejudices of their childhood. In German fairy tales black people always appear as the bogey man. You don't forget things like that so easily."

"As far as AAU is concerned, TETFUND has done well because on an annual basis, there is normal intervention from the body to federal and state universities and this depends on how far a university has utilised what it was given previously. In AAU, we have a lot of TETFUND intervention projects to showcase."

"The University is distraught, we are confused and sad. We are yet to get full details of her death. We have no details yet, we have not confirmed anything, but we heard she died of a protracted ailment."

"As a VC,she was able to stabilize AAU as at that time. I must say that she came, she saw and she conquered."

"I think government has a greater role to play because if you enter into an agreement, it behooves the parties to keep to the terms of the agreement. It is when you don’t keep to the terms of the agreement that you have problems. If you look at the last ASUU strike, it came up as a result of the Federal Government not playing its part after several reminders to do so from ASUU."

"Most of our courses have been accredited by the NUC. As you must know, most courses have accreditation for four or five years and most of the courses that were accredited about five years ago are due for accreditation this year. And the ones that were accredited in 2012 will be due for accreditation in the next three years; so we have most of our courses accredited."

"Right now, Nigeria is facing a lot of challenges and AAU is an integral part of Nigeria and some of these challenges are what we face – insecurity, financial problems, instability and the problem of strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU)."

"Naturally, I was very happy because it was a confirmation of the fact that I have done well on the job; and the governor recognises good work and merit when he sees one."

"All these goes to confirm the avowed commitment of the people’s governor to the growth and development of the university. I must also add that just recently, towards the accreditation exercise in this university, the state government supported the university with the sum of N100 million."

"It is time that we must make and take bold actions. Our actions must solve problems in multiple ways and create solutions that are multifaceted. We must seek to achieve SDG 1 and 2,” CS Omamo said while referring to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty and hunger."

"We need a global order that will release Africa from the shackles of dependency, from a State in which Africa is unable to make its own decisions. We need to return Africa to a state of self-reliance."