As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.

The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no worldly success can compensate for failure in the home.

Home ought to be our clearing house, the place from which we go forth lessoned and disciplined, and ready for life.

There is nothing like having a United Nations at home.

As you leave UM to take up your work as nurses, engineers, teachers, scholars, scientific researchers, writers, caregivers, remember that you have learned much more here than what was required to qualify for your degrees. Remember the broader responsibilities that the learning and education you have received entail and share that commitment with the world. Remember that facts and truth matter, and must undergird any just and enduring society. Remember the human connections and contrasts that created the context in which learning thrived. And remember the combination of respect and resilience that the natural environment has required of you and let those qualities serve as touchstones in all you do in life. Remember to be Canes even as you leave this place to serve and uplift a wider world. Congratulations and godspeed.

I took that job in hopes of serving the region that had nurtured me and taught me so much, and at the same time, to do it from a perspective where I was also serving another dimension, which is the UN system.

Home is a myth and, at some point, I had to accept that. I have lived in so many places and I have just learned to accept that you belong where you are.

There are certain traits you learn at home and of course you continue learning in school but what is prevalent in the house is what really influences you. So growing up under such an environment, you learn contentment and whatever you have, you thank God and use it.

The United Nations is an organization of extraordinary potential. As the United Nations rebuilds its headquarters, it must also open the door to a new age of transparency, accountability, and seriousness of purpose. With determination and clear purpose, the United Nations can be a powerful force for good as we head into the 21st century. It can affirm the great promise of its founding.

You will have to build a home no matter where you are. You will have to decorate and settle and reach out. You will have to find rhythms and routines. You will have to be vulnerable, and you will have to be seen.

There is nowhere we can turn to that is an escape from ourselves.

Home wasn't a set house, or a single town on a map. It was wherever the people who loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, and then another, building on each other like bricks to create a solid shelter that you take with you for your entire life, wherever you may go.

You were my home
for so long.
Now I realize that humans
cannot
be homes.
If homes can leave,
then they are not
homes.

My decision to work at the UN was driven by my need to uplift the lives of others the way I had been uplifted. When I moved to the UK, the images of Africa I saw on television did not align with my lived experience. I was galvanised to combat these entrenched misperceptions of the place where I was born and raised, the place I am proud to claim as my continent of origin.

I've always wanted to get as far as possible from the place where I was born. Far both geographically and spiritually. To leave it behind ... I feel that life is very short and the world is there to see and one should know as much about it as possible. One belongs to the whole world, not just one part of it.