With economic opportunity, sometimes it’s making sure that if they’re not in a place where they can have good jobs, that when they have economic opportunity, they have digital tools to use.
MELINDA GATESHaving children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.
More Melinda Gates Quotes
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One life is worth no more or less than any other.
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If you don’t have an effective teacher in front of the classroom, you won’t change the trajectory for students.
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When we invest in women, we invest in a powerful source of global development.
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That’s universal – we all want to bring every good thing to our children. But what’s not universal is our ability to provide every good thing.
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Everyone agrees that the failure of our high schools is tragic. It’s bad business, and it’s bad policy. But we act as if it can’t be helped. It can be helped. We designed these high schools; we can redesign them.
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I think the Americans need to understand that a lot of times the children are bored in school, and that is why they are not staying in.
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Men make different investments than women do. Women tend to invest more of their earnings than men do in their family’s well-being – as much as 10 times more.
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The biggest pieces of work that we do are vaccines, because those save lives, and also family planning. Because if a woman can space the births of her children, it changes everything for her health and her child’s health.
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We look in our own backyard and say, ‘How do we help at-risk families, at risk youth? How do we think through some of the problems affecting the Pacific Northwest and make some change there?’
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It’s important to remember that behind every data point is a daughter, a mother, a sister—a person with hopes and dreams.
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Around the world we have girls in primary school at about the same rate now as boys, but keeping them in quality secondary schools is where the world is lagging. I’m seeing a lot of countries look at this now.
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Women are the centre of the family. It’s the woman who decides what’s eaten in the house, when to have the kids vaccinated; everything that has to do with the children’s health revolves around her.
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I learn in a different way. I learn experientially.
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Any social or cultural change has to be made openly and with people agreeing. You don’t get there by just pushing an outsider’s point of view.
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Our desire to bring every good thing to our children is a force for good throughout the world. It’s what propels societies forward.
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I care much more about saving the lives of mothers and babies than I do about a fancy museum somewhere.
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Government funding that’s coming from the United States is making a huge difference on the ground in the developing world. It’s really palpable – it’s making a huge difference saving lives.
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As a woman finds economic opportunity, even if she’s only earning a couple of dollars a day, if she can save it on her phone, she then makes different decisions for her household than her husband might.
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We set out what’s going to be our work time versus our foundation time versus family time, and we’ll reassess that… sometimes every week.
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Philanthropy is not about the money. It’s about using whatever resources you have at your fingertips and applying them to improving the world.
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My background was computer science and business school, so eventually I worked my way up where I was running product groups – development, testing, marketing, user education.
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If you ask, who has the chance to move into the city and get a good job out in the developing world? It’s a man. Who’s left to care for the kids back at home? The woman is.
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If you can’t travel to the developing world, look at helping to fund a woman with a small loan and follow her. Learn her story. Learn about the difference that you’re making.
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If you invest in a girl or a woman, you are investing in everybody else.
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You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can’t get her to come and get them then they won’t work.
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I felt suicidal. I couldn’t stop crying. I remember thinking, wouldn’t it be great if the car crashed and I died?
MELINDA GATES