Ann Cotton

“You need to listen to the people experiencing the problems, and their ideas need to crowd out the words of the 'can't be done-ers.'”

“Be greedy for social change, and your life will be endlessly enriched. The only failure lies in not trying, or giving up.”

“For the poor, learning to manage money well is central to improving their lives.”

“Money is hardly neutral. Its connection to power makes it a highly charged social phenomenon and a mediator of relationships. Because it has historically been controlled by men, it has given men a tool for controlling women.”

“Poverty diminishes confidence. So if someone offers you a grain store, even if you really need a plough, you take what is offered to you.”

“At base, financial literacy is inextricably connected to control over one's future.”

“You can't raise the aspirations of a child and then leave them hanging. Poverty can't be solved by a project. It's solved by a relationship, collaboration.”

“There are 45 million children in Africa who are not in school. While other children are learning, exploring, and growing in the myriad ways that children were meant to grow, these children are trapped in a life of constant struggle. Without education, how can they be expected to escape such struggle? How can their children?”

“When I first worked in Zimbabwe, I was a complete novice. I was doing a study, and I continued to learn more and more through the years. And where I have learned most is in the village, from the communities.”

“In the family pattern, men support boys and women support girls, and because women have far fewer financial resources, there is less money to invest in girls.”

“The prevailing view was that girls were outside of school because of the resistance of families to their education. But when I visited a local village, what everyone told me - the chiefs, the parents, the children - was that girls weren't in school because it was the boys that had a better chance of getting paid work in the future.”

“Confidence is instrumental to those climbing out of poverty.”

“Camfed graduates are active in their villages using their skills and resources to improve as many lives as possible. They are teaching financial literacy to marginalized women and bringing vital health care information to rural schoolchildren. Through example, they are demonstrating the power of philanthropy.”

“The organization I founded in 1993, Camfed (the Campaign for Female Education), was in large part inspired by the generosity shown to me by a community in a village in Zimbabwe. During my visit to Mola to research girls' exclusion from education, the people of Mola fed me, shaded me, walked and talked with me for hours each day.”

“The world has proved enough times that it can scale cruelty and violence. Compassion and kindness can and must be scaled to create a world of justice for children.”

“I am honoured to join education innovators like Ms. Vicky Colbert, Dr. Madhav Chavan, and Sir Fazle Hasan Abed as the fourth WISE Prize for Education Laureate. I accept this prize on behalf of the million girls Camfed is committed to supporting through secondary education.”

“Girls' education is a human right. And along with its fundamental justice, it promises so much for the individual, for her family, for society, for all of us.”

“The aim of militants such as Boko Haram, whose very name means 'Western education is a sin,' is to sow hatred and enmity between Muslim and Christian communities, which have co-existed largely peacefully for generations. Education, in particular the education of women, is a threat to Boko Haram's goals.”