HELENE D. GAYLE

I always knew that I wanted to do the most that I could for the most people.

As many as half of Ethiopia's girls become wives before becoming adults. But Ethiopia is also a place where lasting solutions to child marriage are starting to make a difference.

We always say at CARE that we would love to see if we can work ourselves out of business.

In Nueva Esperanza, Honduras, community members pooled their resources and organized a local water committee that with CARE's technical guidance built a gravity-fed water system that now provides clean water directly to people's homes.

With political will and strategic initiatives, we can prevent more and more of our global neighbors from falling into the abyss of poverty and instead give future generations the opportunities they need to rise to their fullest potential.

The more you look into health and health inequalities, you realize that a lot of it is not due to a particular disease - it's really linked to underlying societal issues such as poverty, inequity, lack of access to safe drinking water and housing. And these are all the things we focus on at CARE.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

I was the middle of five children, and we were five very opinionated siblings. That probably pushed me to learn to speak up for myself.

My father had the main barber- and beauty-supply business in the African-American community in Buffalo.

CARE and our partner organizations have found that one of the most effective ways of stopping child marriage is to tap into a parent's love for their child. When parents learn about the consequences of child marriage, they're far less likely to push their children into it.

At CARE, a leading humanitarian organization, we recognize people live their lives in a holistic manner. Issues such as health care, education and economic empowerment cannot be addressed in a vacuum. Thus, effective programs need to tackle the multiple root causes of poverty.

A big part of leadership is just being comfortable with the fact that some decisions really are only yours.

The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

Early marriage is most prevalent in communities suffering deep, chronic poverty.

There is no doubt that a woman's economic empowerment is very much interconnected to her health and the well being of her children.

When I walk into a room that is all white and all male, I'm sitting on the outside of that club. That's sometimes an intimidating experience. But I think that everywhere that I've gotten is because I've worked hard. I have the experience, I have the credentials - I continue not to take any of that for granted.

In order to counteract income inequality, it's essential to tackle poverty in an integrated way that has long-term impact. We need to give people the capacity to be resilient, to take on challenges and to learn the skills they need to work toward more prosperous futures.

At the Centers for Disease Control, I rose up fairly quickly into management positions. The first team I led there included many people who had been my supervisors in previous roles or were more senior than I was. So it was kind of a daunting challenge.

We know that if you educate a girl, as the saying goes, you educate a nation. That girl will get married later, she will have fewer children, she's more likely to earn an income, and that income is more likely to be plowed back into the family so that the family benefits.

Ethiopia's government is doing a commendable job of working closely with donors and humanitarian organizations to educate parents about child marriage, and to support organizations like the Hamlin Fistula Hospital.

When I want to explain why empowering girls and women is critical to fighting poverty, I often tell a person's story. It's easier to relate to a personal story than to global data telling us that the majority of the billion people who live on less than $2 per day are women and girls. We are often told to never treat a person like a statistic.

What keeps me motivated is going out to the field and seeing programs that incorporate a focus on both people and the planet, and seeing how mutually reinforcing they can really be.

The environmental movement could do a better job incorporating the message about the connection between poverty and environmental degradation, and building that message at the grassroots level.

Learn to forgive yourself and move on.

Any discussion of investment or putting monetary value on the environment must start with the populations who rely on those resources.