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At the beginning of my career, I visited a Sudanese refugee camp in Uganda and saw a two-year-old girl die before my eyes. The technical term for what this girl experienced, when you are too thin and malnourished for your size, is childhood wasting. And it was, indeed, a waste. A young life - with all its potential - gone forever.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield
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Interpretation

What this quote means

This quote highlights the tragic loss of potential in children due to malnutrition and suffering.

In this poignant reflection, Linda Thomas-Greenfield recounts a deeply impactful moment in her life where she witnessed the heartbreaking reality of childhood malnutrition in a refugee camp. The term 'childhood wasting' underscores the severe consequences of poverty and conflict, illustrating how young lives filled with potential can be abruptly cut short. This moment serves as a stark reminder of the realities faced by many in vulnerable situations and the urgent need for compassion and action.

Themes

ChildhoodMalnutritionLossPotentialCompassion

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about humanitarian efforts, one might say, 'As Linda Thomas-Greenfield told us about witnessing a child die from malnutrition, we are reminded of the urgency in our mission.'

More from Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Throughout my career, from Jamaica to Nigeria, Pakistan to Switzerland, I've learned that effective diplomacy means more than shaking hands and staging photo ops. It means developing real, robust relationships. It means finding common ground and managing points of differentiation. It means doing genuine, old-fashioned, people-to-people diplomacy.
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The fact that I made it to where I made it, when I look at where I came, I think is a message to the world and it's also a message to other young people who come from diverse and underprivileged backgrounds, that where they come from does not necessarily have to define where they are going.
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Those of us who experience racism cannot, and should not, internalize it, despite the impact that it can have on our everyday lives. We must face it down, every time, no matter whom it's directed towards.
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I think countries are now, leaders are now more conscious of the importance of having women engage in their country's development plan. Because again, and I say this over and over and over again, when we invest in women they invest back in their families, they invest in their communities, and they invest in their countries.
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The more we elevate people's lives - the more we treat people with dignity and respect and honor their rights and freedoms - the more we discourageand even preventterrorism.
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It is unconscionable for Russia to force Ukrainian citizens into Russia, and put them in what will basically be concentration and prisoner camps.
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Quote by Linda Thomas-Greenfield | QuoteProject