Just a little help, a small security force, a bit of food, can save lives
Interpretation
Small acts of assistance can have a profound impact on saving lives.
This quote emphasizes the significant effect that even minimal support can have in crisis situations. Nicholas D. Kristof suggests that basic provisions such as food, security, and aid can turn around vulnerable individuals' lives, illustrating the power of compassion and collective responsibility in addressing human suffering.
In practice
In a speech about philanthropy, one could quote this to inspire action.
More girls were killed in the last 50 years, precisely because they were girls, than men killed in all the wars in the 20th century. More girls are killed in this routine gendercide in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the 20th century. The equivalent of 5 jumbo jets worth of women die in labor each day... life time risk of maternal death is 1,000x higher in a poor country than in the west. That should be an international scandal.
The fact that people will pay you to talk to people and travel to interesting places and write about what intrigues you, I am just amazed by that.
Abortion politics have distracted all sides from what is really essential: a major aid campaign to improve midwifery, prenatal care and emergency obstetric services in poor countries.
You will be judged in years to come by how you responded to genocide on your watch.
Itβs time for a 21st-century abolitionist movement in the U.S and around the world.
Women aren't the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity.
It's very fashionable to talk about human trafficking, in this fantastic A-C hall. It's very nice for discussion, discourse, making films and everything. But it is not nice to bring them to our homes. It's not nice to give them employment in our factories, our companies. It's not nice for our children to study with their children. There it ends. That's my biggest challenge.
It's really very simple, Governor. When people are hungry they die. So spare me your politics and tell me what you need and how you're going to get it to these people.
Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.
My first big mission for UNICEF in Ethiopia was just to attract attention, before it was too late, to conditions which threatened the whole country. My role was to inform the world, to make sure that the people of Ethiopia were not forgotten.
... the long-lasting humanitarian impact of these inhuman weapons continues to deny communities the opportunity to rebuild long after the end of the conflicts.
My most important projects have been the building and maintaining of schools and medical clinics for my dear friends in the Himalaya and helping restore their beautiful monasteries, too.
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