The biggest killers of children around the world are two things: diarrhea and pneumonia. When you think about it, in the United States, kids don’t die of diarrhea anymore, but it’s a huge problem in the developing world.
We [with Bill Gates] started to make decisions about what we’d invest in. Then I actually started traveling for the foundation. I’ve probably been to India now eight times at least and Africa numerous times.
Bill [Gates] and I believe philanthropy can only be effective if it starts things and proves whether they actually work or not. That’s the place that governments often don’t want to, or can’t, work.
I think it’s very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they’re growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual.
Women and girls face a whole host of issues. We start with health, so we work very deeply on maternal deaths, making sure that a mom doesn’t die in childbirth, making sure that she has access, for instance, to AIDS medication.
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.
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.
![Melinda Gates Quote - We [with Bill Gates] started to make decisions about what we’d invest in. Then I actually started traveling for the foundation. I’ve probably been to India now eight times at least and Africa numerous times.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/we-with-bill-gates-started-to-make-decisions-about-683x1024.jpg)
![Melinda Gates Quote - Bill [Gates] and I believe philanthropy can only be effective if it starts things and proves whether they actually work or not. That’s the place that governments often don’t want to, or can’t, work.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/bill-gates-and-i-believe-philanthropy-can-only-be--683x1024.jpg)
