“He [George Clooney] presented himself and his father as journalists. He explained to the people who he met that he was there to hear their story, that he was concerned about their plight and that he wanted to retell their story back in the United States and around the world.”

- Melissa Winkler, IRC emergency communications director, on The Fabulous Picture Show on Al Jazeera, referring to actor and director George Clooney’s IRC-sponsored trip to Sudan and Chad with father, Nick, in 2006.

“I’m here to see my children happy and laughing, I want them to drink orange juice in the morning. In Baghdad they smelled and drank smoke and rockets.”

- Nazar Joodi, an Iraqi refugee resettled by the IRC with his family in the Washington D.C. area, speaking with The Washington Examiner.

“No post-conflict country can truly ‘recover’ or ‘develop’ while its women and children still suffer. After all, if women and children really counted, they’d have to count as the overwhelming majority of human beings on the planet. Most of the world’s children are in the care of women. As women fare, so fare children. As children fare, so fares the country in the future. That’s why GBV is so important. It’s not a ‘women’s issue’—not some incidental add-on to the ‘real’ business of relief and recovery. It’s the best possible investment in a better world.”

- Ann Jones blogging from Sierra Leone on an IRC gender-based violence (GBV) program that puts cameras in the hands of women in conflict zones and helps them make their voices heard.

“If we don’t make our best-faith efforts, with the best methods available, we’ll get back to the bad old days when someone makes up a number … and [the number] is going to get perpetuated.”

- Richard Brennan, IRC senior health director, speaking with The National Journal for an article about accurately counting refugee flows or deaths caused by war and famine. A new IRC survey has found that 5,400,000 people have died from war-related causes in Congo since 1998 – the world’s deadliest documented conflict since WW II.

“I don’t think I have ever worked so closely with the private sector.”

–Pam Flowers, IRC country director in Azerbaijan, interviewed by The Christian Science Monitor for an article about community projects in Azerbaijan created by the oil company, BP.