I haven't lived my life through my daughters. Some parents devote everything to their children, which must be so hard, and it's very beautiful. But I'm a working parent, so I've always kept my own life.
I understand what it is for a woman to want to protect their children and give them the best they can.
I want to branch out. I want to write. I write poetry. I want to see my children grow up well.
Something that's of common interest to every man, woman and child on the planet must surely be the notion of 'Peace'. Without 'Peace' we cannot survive. Valentine's Day is on the 14 February. Christmas Day is on the 25 December. Peace Day has been established by the United Nations on the 21 September, and the whole world is invited to participate.
I'm an only child, you know, originally. I'm not a child anymore, but I certainly tend to spend a lot of time on my own.
I have a reputation for being cold and aloof, but I'm so not that woman. I'm passionate. I love my girls, being with my girlfriends, getting involved with issues that affect other women and children who are suffering.
When you go to Africa, and you see children, they're usually barefoot, dirty and in rags, and they'd love to go to school.
It's a very telling thing when you have children. You have to be there for them, you've got to set an example, when you're not sure what your example is, and anyway the world is changing so fast you don't know what is appropriate anymore.
We would like to see the virtual elimination of the transmission of [HIV] from mother to child by 2015. ... We believe it can be achieved with political will.
As a mother, you have that impulse to wish that no child should ever be hurt, or abused, or go hungry, or not have opportunities in life.
In the States, the HIV transmission from mother to child is almost completely preventable - the only mothers who really do transmit it are the ones who don't come in for care. If a mother in the United States or in Europe or in the UK comes to care and gets her medicines, she will have an HIV negative baby. Most people don't know that.
To try to help people have babies in a healthy way and to celebrate the process of delivering a child which will be healthy is, I think, almost the best part of healthcare.
Medicine comes with hope: the hope of having a healthy child, the hope of being able to raise your family.
There's so much stigma around HIV/AIDS. It's a challenging issue, and the people that already have been tested and know their status find it very, very hard to disclose their status, to live with that virus, and to even seek out the kind of information they need. This experience of going to South Africa a decade ago really woke me up to the scale of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa, how it was affecting women and their children. I haven't been able to walk away from it.
