When I travel, I make certain that I spend at least half of my time in the field. You have to get out to meet people that are in poverty, that are looking to improve their lives. That's something that you can't read in books.
Interpretation
Experiencing life directly is crucial for understanding poverty and making a difference.
James Wolfensohn emphasizes the importance of firsthand experiences in understanding and addressing poverty. He argues that while books can provide valuable information, true comprehension and empathy towards those facing poverty can only be gained through real interactions and engagements in the field, allowing one to connect with individuals striving for better lives.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of fieldwork in social programs.
In this time of globalization, with all its advantages, the poor are the most vulnerable to having their traditions, relationships and knowledge and skills ignored and denigrated, and experiencing development with a great sense of trauma, loss and social disconnectedness.
The only way really to influence countries, in terms of poverty, is to get them to change their policies and get them to understand what the issues are.
Too many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
So the first thing you need to do about conflict is to prevent it, and the best way of preventing it is by dealing with the question of poverty.
The Bank had never used the word 'corruption' at all until I got there, and the reason for that was, as the general counsel pointed out to me, that quite a number of our shareholders represented were not immune from corruption in their governments.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
We are told there is not enough money for education, but somehow there is enough money for people to raise billions of dollars to defeat somebody in an election? Oh! Okay! Does that make sense?
Students often have such a lofty idea of what a poem is, and I want them to realize that their own lives are where the poetry comes from. The most important things are to respect the language; to know the classical rules, even if only to break them; and to be prepared to edit, to revise, to shape.
Kids have little computer bodies with disks that store information. They remember who had to do the dishes the last time you had spaghetti, who lost the knob off the TV set six years ago, who got punished for teasing the dog when he wasn't teasing the dog and who had to wear girls boots the last time it snowed.
You see, unlike in the movies, there is no THE END sign flashing at the end of books. When I've read a book, I don't feel like I've finished anything. So I start a new one.
Fill your house with stacks of books, in all the crannies and all the nooks.
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