Ann Cotton Quotes

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

Ann Cotton

#2. The culture of philanthropy is alive and very well in Africa. International aid strengthens and extends it, but in the communities where I have spent time, it is all-pervasive.

Ann Cotton

#3. 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.

Ann Cotton

#4. All children everywhere deserve the opportunity that is unlocked for them by education.

Ann Cotton

#5. Poverty is more than a material experience; it's a psychological state as well, one that is infused with anxiety. And decision-making is very complex because every decision you make has an impact on your future and survival.

Ann Cotton

#6. For the poor, learning to manage money well is central to improving their lives.

Ann Cotton

#7. I have seen the transformative effect that education has in the lives of young women and their communities.

Ann Cotton

#8. Have faith in your intuition and listen to your gut feeling.

Ann Cotton

#9. If women have an income, they will invest a higher proportion of that income in their children than men do. So you do get those societal returns very quickly.

Ann Cotton

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

Ann Cotton

#11. 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.

Ann Cotton

#12. The work being done by Linklaters to help organizations understand keys to success in the development sector serves as an important international affairs issue and crucial element in how all of us work to support service provision in impoverished communities in a lasting and effective way.

Ann Cotton

#13. Women's vulnerability around money is hardly exclusive to Africa. Throughout the world, women struggle with financial power. In the West, women's financial literacy is notably lower than men's. That lack of knowledge means that many women slide into poverty when they become widows.

Ann Cotton

#14. 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.

Ann Cotton

#15. 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.

Ann Cotton

#16. 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.

Ann Cotton

#17. 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.

Ann Cotton

#18. 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.'

Ann Cotton

#19. Confidence is instrumental to those climbing out of poverty.

Ann Cotton

#20. My journey started with the understanding that poor parents share the universal desire for education for their children. No family in our experience has ever turned down educational support for their daughter.

Ann Cotton

#21. 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.

Ann Cotton

#22. 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.

Ann Cotton

#23. If you can't send your daughter to school when you know it will help her, you feel a sense of failure, and you feel that failure deeply.

Ann Cotton

#24. The exclusion of girls from education is an issue of justice. But it's also an issue of economics because it's holding families, communities, and nations back. The chiefs are often a bridge between the traditional and the modern world and are very powerful implements to change.

Ann Cotton

#25. For more than 20 years, Camfed has supported a generation of African girls and women with access to secondary and higher education, employment opportunities, and, ultimately, into positions of leadership.

Ann Cotton

#26. Never take your eye off the ball. Always remember that you and everyone on the team is the servant of the cause - in our case, girls' education and young women's leadership in Africa.

Ann Cotton

#27. Camfed has worked for more than two decades in partnership with poor families, transforming this desire for girls' education into reality, and showing the measurable benefits of girls' education for all of us.

Ann Cotton