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March 2009
The answer is simple: when I look
into the
eyes of the children in
Pakistan and Afghanistan,
I see the eyes of my own
children full of wonder —
and hope that we each
do our part to leave them
a legacy of peace instead
of the perpetual cycle of
violence, war, terrorism,
racism, exploitation, and
bigotry that we have yet
to conquer.
—Greg Mortenson,
Three Cups of Tea |
|
By
Dara McCoy
 reg
Mortenson’s first mission in Pakistan in 1993 was to honor the
memory of his sister Christa, who, after suffering from severe
epilepsy since childhood, died of the condition in 1992 at age 23.
His attempt to reach the summit of K2, the world’s second tallest
mountain, failed only 600 meters from the peak. Mortenson and his
team were forced to turn back — his sister’s necklace and the
Tibetan prayer flag he’d planned to place at the top still in his
pack. “After 78 days of primal struggle at altitude on K2, he felt
like a faint, shriveled caricature of himself,” wrote David Oliver
Relin in Three Cups of Tea, which he coauthored with Mortenson.
During the grueling descent of
the mountain’s harsh terrain, Mortenson became separated from his
Pakistani porter. Alone, without food or water, he stumbled upon the
remote village of Korphe. While gradually regaining his strength
under the watchful hospitality of the villagers, Mortenson observed
the harsh existence his hosts carved out for themselves.
Witnessing Korphe’s 84 children
practice their school lessons outside in the frosty temperatures,
using sticks to write in the dirt, Mortenson found a new purpose for
his trip to Pakistan. “At that moment, I realized I had not come to
Pakistan to climb a mountain, but to help the children and build a
school to honor Christa,” Mortenson said. Before he returned to the
United States, he promised to build Korphe a school.
TRIAL AND TRIUMPH
When Mortenson, a former U.S.
Army medic and platoon leader, civilian nurse, and mountain climbing
enthusiast, fulfilled his promise to Korphe’s children, he
accomplished something much greater than reaching K2’s summit.
Mortenson’s Central Asia Institute (CAI), a nonprofit organization
focused on educating children in remote regions of Pakistan and
Afghanistan, has built 78 schools, 14 women’s vocational centers,
and completed numerous public health projects like potable water
systems for villages in the two countries.
Mortenson’s improbable story is
detailed in his New York Times bestseller Three Cups of
Tea. Journalist Tom Brokaw, one of Mortenson’s first benefactors
and the only respondent to Mortenson’s first shot-in-the-dark
fundraising mailing to 580 celebrities, said, “Three Cups of Tea
is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg
Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the
wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling
read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right
combination of character and determination, really can change the
world.”
Mortenson has navigated the
culture and language of remote peoples, built bridges both tangible
and intangible to reach them, survived kidnapping by armed gunmen,
had Muslim fatwahs levied against his efforts, and braved the
increasing difficulties presented by a post-9/11 world in the
regions he serves.
Since the terrorist attacks on
New York City and the Pentagon, new levels of danger, attention, and
intensity have been added to Mortenson’s efforts. In the days after
September 11, Mortenson was interrogated by U.S. intelligence
officers and received stacks of hate mail in response to his pleas
not to characterize all Muslims together with terrorists. On the
other hand, the terrorist attacks brought attention to his work and
his quest to promote peace in the places he serves.
 
PEACE THROUGH
EDUCATION
Mortenson never started out on a
mission against terrorism, but after more than a decade of working
in the regions that cultivate extremist groups like Al Qaeda and the
Taliban, Mortenson saw his schools as the antithesis to Muslim
extremist madrassas that teach tenants of jihad and become feeders
for terrorist groups. “I don’t want to teach Pakistan’s children to
think like Americans,” Mortenson said in Three Cups of Tea.
“I just want them to have a balanced, nonextremist education.”
Mortenson believes that
education is a better weapon than bullets or bombs in the war on
terrorism. He sees it simply. Educated young Muslims will be much
more resistant to terrorist propaganda and feel much more hopeful
about their prospects to lead healthy, productive lives. “What’s the
difference between them becoming productive local citizens or
terrorists?” Mortenson asked. “I think the key is education.”
Mortenson regards education,
especially for girls, as a factor powerful enough to institute
positive cultural changes and solve many problems for these regions.
“There is an African proverb that says if you educate a boy, you
educate an individual, but if you educate a girl, you educate the
community,” Mortenson said.
Mortenson points to the
Taliban’s targeted attacks on girls’ schools in Afghanistan and
Pakistan as indication that he is right. The Taliban relies on
recruiting from illiterate and impoverished areas because educated
women are more likely to refuse to allow their sons to join,
Mortenson said. “In 2007, the Taliban bombed, burned, or shut down
over 500 schools in Afghanistan and another 100 in Pakistan,” he
said. “I think the reason they attack girls’ schools is because
their greatest fear is not the bullet, but the pen.”
 BEING
HEARD
There is evidence that
Mortenson’s message is being heard and acted upon. Mortenson cites
UNICEF reports to support the progress. In 2000, there were only
800,000 Afghanistan children (mostly boys age 5-15) in school.
Today, the number is more than seven million — the greatest increase
in enrollment in any country in modern history —
with two million of those
children being female, Mortenson said. “To me, that’s the most
inspiring, incredible news to come out of the country, but nobody in
the U.S. is aware of it,” Mortenson said. “I think that should be
headline news, and I think it should be a priority. There’s a fierce
desire for education.”
Mortenson runs himself ragged
getting the message out through his best-selling book, which has
sold more than two million copies, and a busy speaking schedule,
which put him in front of 350,000 people last year. “As Americans, I
think we really believe in education as a key to peace and
prosperity,” Mortenson said.
Three Cups of Tea
is impacting the U.S. military too. The book became
mandatory reading for U.S. officers who enter counter intelligence
training after U.S. Army General David Petraeus, U.S. Central
Command chief, read the book.
AWARDING LEADERSHIP
 On
August 14, 2008, Pakistan announced it will award its highest civil
award, the Sitara-e-Pakistan (Star of Pakistan) to Mortenson on
March 23, 2009, for “his courage and humanitarian effort to promote
education and literacy in rural areas for the last 15 years,”
according to the CAI Web site.
On March 5, Mortenson received
Austin College’s Posey Leadership Award. The award is an extension
of the College’s Posey Leadership Institute, which seeks to build
character through academic study and hands-on leadership education.
The four-year program grounds students in the principles of servant
leadership — responsibility, respect, caring, gratitude, and service
— and how these values help both communities and their economies
thrive.
Mortenson and previous Austin
College Leadership Award recipients were selected because
their lives directly model the leadership goals and ideals taught by
the Posey Leadership Institute. “Mr. Mortenson’s daring work to help
provide for the education of girls and young women in remote areas
of Afghanistan and Pakistan demonstrates a passionate commitment to
the promotion of peace,” said Oscar C. Page, president of
Austin College. “The impact of his leadership will be far-reaching,
for generations to come, and will contribute positively to stability
in this region of the world.”
To understand his story, it is
important to note Mortenson’s own heroes: his parents who
established a hospital and school in Tanzania, Africa; Dr. Albert
Schweitzer, a Nobel laureate and medical missionary in the Congo;
Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mt. Everest and who later
established schools for the Sherpa; and Mother Teresa, perhaps the
most noted humanitarian of all time.
In the lives and stories of his
heroes, pieces of Greg Mortenson can be seen, an indication that he
has earned a place among them. Where he failed as a mountain
climber, he began one of the greatest humanitarian quests of recent
decades.
PENNIES FOR PEACE
 It
is fitting that one of the Central Asia Institute’s first and most
successful fundraising efforts for its mission to build schools for
children in Pakistan was made successful by school children in the
United States. In 1994, Mortenson’s mother, Jerene, the principal at
Westside Elementary School in River Falls, Wisconsin, invited her
son to talk about his work with the 600 students enrolled there.
Two teachers and a fourth grader established a
“Pennies for Pakistan” drive after Mortenson left. Within six weeks,
the students had raised $623.40 in pennies. “Children had taken the
first step toward building the school,” Mortenson said in Three
Cups of Tea. “And they did it with something that’s basically
worthless in our society — pennies. But overseas, pennies can move
mountains.”
Since then, Mortenson has never underestimated the
heart of children to help their peers across the world. CAI
established the Pennies for Peace Program that teaches American
children about the situation of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan
and offers them the opportunity to make a difference. Read more
about the
Pennies for Peace Program.
BOOKS BY GREG MORTENSON
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote
Peace … One School at a Time
- Three Cups of Tea:
The Young Reader’s Edition
- Listen to the Wind,
Mortenson’s newest book, released in January, retells in storybook
fashion for young children his mission to build schools.
Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea is a New
York Times bestseller and has won numerous literary awards,
including Time Magazine’s Asia Book of the Year. In the young
reader’s edition of the book, Mortenson’s daughter, Amira, is
featured in a special interview section. When not overseas,
Mortenson, 51, lives in Montana with his wife, Tara Bishop, a
clinical psychologist, and their two children, daughter, Amira, and
son, Khyber. |
