"When a person with an intellectual disability can be recognized as an honored citizen, a role model, a person of dignity, a leader, it is significant of a new inclusive way of thinking that will help us all learn how we can share each other's gifts and live better together."
Rick Jeffrey, President, Special Olympics Virginia

"Inclusive education does not give up on slow learners, on the poor and the most vulnerable, on people who are differently abled. Neither does it discriminate in terms of culture and faith affiliation. Instead, it capitalizes on the diversity of individual learners to broaden perspectives and enrich the learning experience. It is about understanding other cultures, other faiths, and people who are different from us, with the aim of achieving greater global understanding and tolerance, and obtaining peace for our conflict-plagued world."
Education for a peaceful, just, and equitable world, Editorial, Manila Bulletin Online

"Parents who tell their kids not to play with the weird kid need to change that direction. Replace fear and hesitancy with inclusion and friendship. What if a parent sat down with a child and said, 'You know honey, make sure you watch for any kids that need a friend, and then ask them to join in - and keep asking them until they feel included and loved.'
Kaye Nelson

"The inclusion of children with disabilities is not a charitable act but a matter of rights. Empowering and enabling children makes them less vulnerable to violence, abuse and exploitation."
Nicholas Alipui, UNICEF Director of Programmes

"People who suffer from mental health problems remain one of the most excluded groups in society."
Rosie Winterton, Health Minister, United Kingdom

"The inclusive approach has as its paradigm that the disabled are part of us, our family, our society, our community and our hearts, plans; budgets are large enough to include them."
Shantanu Dutta

"In an inclusive society, poverty should be no-one's destiny. Poverty hurts. Inequality offends."
President Vincente Fox, Mexico

"Chronic child malnutrition is unacceptable on ethical and humanitarian grounds, but also for social, economic and political reasons. Food, nutrition and health are basic human rights, without which there is little likelihood of total inclusion in society."
Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank