I don't know what her official diagnosis is or was - perhaps just a garden-variety speech delay with unknown causes. All I know is that when I see her stand up for herself and speak, asserting herself with a mighty roar, "You're not the boss of me!" my heart swells with relief, pride, love, and satisfaction.

Ultimately, there is a mismatch between the global agenda and what's needed on the ground. As Johnny Cash intimated, we're often not doing what people really want us to do, or what they really need.

I left university with the notion that large institutions worked methodically on all issues of need in poor countries. When a met Ling, a boy from Cambodia desperately in need of speech therapy services, I discovered that there was a significant need in the developing world being ignored by our world's largest aid organisations.

"Anything can be overcome."