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Childbearing, I Mean, If There's No Place To Go To Deliver Your Baby, Then You're The One That's Delivering In Those Unhealthy Circumstances. Or If You Can't Get Access To Family Planning, Your Chances Of Surviving And Being Able To Bring Your Kids Up If They Come One Right After The Other, That Locks You Into A Cycle Of Poverty.

-Melinda Gates

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Childbearing, I Mean, If

Melinda Gates

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Childbearing, I Mean, If There's No Place To Go To Deliver Your Baby, Then You're The One That's Delivering In Those Unhealthy Circumstances. Or If You Can't Get Access To Family Planning, Your Chances Of Surviving And Being Able To Bring Your Kids Up If They Come One Right After The Other, That Locks You Into A Cycle Of Poverty.

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I've Travelled Extensively In The Last 16 Years - To Slums In Bangladesh, To Townships In South Africa, To All Kinds Of Places In India, Etc. When I Would Go And Talk To Villagers About Something Like Vaccines, If I Stayed Long Enough, The Women Would Bring The Conversation Around And Say: "what About This Family Planning Tool? We Can't Keep Having The Number Of Children We're Having."

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Around The World

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If We're Going To Make Progress On This Issue [of Contraception], We Have To Be Really Clear About What Our Agenda Is. We're Not Talking About Abortion. We're Not Talking About Population Control. What I'm Talking About Is Giving Women The Power To Save Their Lives, To Save Their Children's Lives And To Give Their Families The Best Possible Future.

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.

If We Don't Empower Women, We Don't Allow Them To Unlock The Potential Of Themselves And Their Children.

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I Realized That The Only Way To Get Into A Good College Was To Be Valedictorian Or Salutatorian. So That Was My Goal.

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.

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.

If You Can't Go To Secondary School, The Boys Get To Go And The Girls Don't, You're Locked Into A Cycle Of Poverty, Because You Don't Have A Chance.

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.

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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In Different Places You Run Into Myths Around Vaccination Or Around Family Planning. In The United States, One Of The Myths That Existed For A Long Time, That Has Been Completely Debunked, Was That Autism Was Linked To A Vaccine.

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All Women, Everywhere, Have The Same Hopes: We Want To Be Self-sufficient And Create Better Lives For Ourselves And Our Loved Ones.

Make Sure You Continue To Trust What You Know Now About Yourself And Stay True To What You Believe In

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Housework Comes First, So Girls Often Fall Behind In School. Global Statistics Show That It's Increasingly Girls, Not Boys, Who Don't Know How To Read.

I Am Catholic, I Was Raised Catholic, I Am A Practicing Catholic. But I Say We Need To Agree To Disagree. We Have A Shared Mission Around Poverty, And I Focus On That, Because We Do A Lot With The Catholic Church Around Poverty Alleviation. I'm Always Looking For: What Is The Common Thread? What Do We Care About? What Do We Believe In? We Believe In Women Around The World. We Believe In All Lives Have Equal Value.

What Great Changes Have Not Been Ambitious?

In The Developing World, They Don't Have Smartphones Yet. They Have The Older Plastic Phones, But Women Are Saving Money On Those, Because They Don't Have Access To Banks. Having That Access To Digital Money Changes Everything For Her Because She Actually Doesn't Have To Negotiate With Her Husband, Which She Will Tell You Is Very Hard In These Circumstances, Especially When The Means Are Meager. She's Expected To Have Money To Pay For The Kids' Health Or To Help With The School Fees.

Like In Africa, If Somebody Doesn't Have Fuel, They're Still Going And Collecting Firewood. If They Get An Oven, That's A Huge Difference. You Can Do Things To Reduce The Inequities By Making Sure That They Can Get Clean Energy, Safe Energy. To Make Sure They're Not Having To Collect Water Every Day. That's Huge For Women In The Developing World.

I'm Happy We Have Three Healthy Children And We'll Stay With Three Healthy Children.

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.

I Am Inspired By The Women I Meet Everywhere I Go. They Have To Work So Hard Just To Make Sure Their Families Survive, But Somehow They Stay Optimistic And Do Everything In Their Power To Make The Future Better Than The Past.

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.

Our Economies Are Built On The Backs Of All This Unpaid Labor That Women Do.

It's Really One Of My All-time Favorite Things To Do. To Go Out And Really See The Kids And Visit The Moms Who Are In These Programs Because I Think I Really Get To See What Happens On The Ground And Connect With Them About What Changes Are That Happen In Their Lives Because Of Some Of The Giving That We're Able To Do.

Even In Decision-making, We Work In Self-help Groups. That Is Women Coming Together In Small Groups Of 10 To Sometimes 15 Women, Where They Start To Get Education About Their Rights, About Clean Water And Sanitation, About How To Have A Healthy Birth. You Can Bring In All Kinds Of Education To Them That Way.

Mothers Might Say They'd Go To The Doctor. In Poor Countries, Moms Are Usually Responsible For Their Kids' Health. But Breastfeeding And Traveling To The Clinic Take Time, And Research Shows That Health Care Is One Of The First Tradeoffs Women Make When They're Too Busy.

Think, For A Moment, About Our Educational Ladder. We've Strengthened The Steps Lifting Students From Elementary School To Junior High, And Those From Junior High To High School. But, That Critical Step Taking Students From High School Into Adulthood Is Badly Broken. And It Can No Longer Support The Weight It Must Bear.

Even In Our Own Agriculture Strategy, If We Got A Great New Drought-resistant Seed And We Managed To Get It Distributed In The System, We Just Assumed That It Would Reach Female Farmers. That's A False Assumption, Because Women Don't Interact With Agro-dealers. So If You Don't Develop Specific Programming To Ensure That Seed Gets In A Woman's Hands, Then The Extra Income [generated By Higher-yielding Crops] Goes Into Her Husband's Hands.

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.

Women Around The World Should Have A Tool That Helps Them Plan Their Pregnancies.

The Premise Of This Foundation Is One Life On This Planet Is No More Valuable Than The Next.

Abortion Has Become A Very Politicised Issue That I Think Countries Have To Work Out Themselves. In A Lot Of Countries, People Can't Even Yet Agree On What Their Laws Should Be.

I'm Constantly Saying To Myself, 'i'm Lucky I Was Born In The United States.

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