Greg Mortenson

There’s an African proverb Greg Mortenson is fond of sharing: “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community.”

Research shows that by educating girls to at least a fifth-grade level, a community’s infant mortality rate decreases, population explosions are reduced, and the basic qualities of life and health are improved, the co-author of Three Cups of Tea said Friday at the Love of Literacy Luncheon.

“We can drop bombs or hand out condoms or put in roads or put in electricity, but unless the girls are educated, society won’t change,” said Mortenson, a Montana resident.

Mortenson’s reputation as a New York Times bestselling author and a promoter of global education and peace drew a crowd of nearly 800 to the Kravis Center for the Literacy Coalition of Palm Beach County’s lunch. In addition to area educators, the audience included West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, State Attorney Michael McAuliffe, former U.S. Rep. Harry Johnston and Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Pariente.

Pentagon debriefing

Mortenson arrived back in the United States at 7 a.m. Thursday from a trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan, where he has been visiting since 1993 to build schools for children, particularly girls. By 9 a.m., he was at the Pentagon debriefing senior military commanders on his trip. On Friday, the day of Mortenson’s Literacy Luncheon speech, President Barack Obama unveiled a new military strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“It’s been exciting to be a part of that,” Mortenson said. “There are many things in there that I think are very exciting. One is that the military is not just sending 22,000 troops, but they announced sending 4,000 trainer troops. It’s about education, training the people themselves.”

As told in Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson’s journey from missionaries’ son living in Tanzania to humanitarian and military adviser began in 1992 when his younger sister, Christa, died of a massive seizure at age 23. To honor her memory, Mortenson in 1993 began a climb of K2, the world’s second-largest mountain, to place her amber necklace at the top.

He failed.

Recuperation in village changes his life

After 78 days on the mountain, Mortenson was forced to descend when the arduous rescue of a sick fellow climber robbed him of the physical strength to continue. On the trek back to civilization, Mortenson became separated from his group and wandered into a Pakistani village called Korphe.

It was during his recuperation in Korphe that Mortenson realized the children there lacked a school, and he observed how they scratched their lessons into the dirt with sticks.

“Having grown up in Africa, I’d seen a lot of poverty,” Mortenson told the Literacy Coalition crowd. “But when I saw those kids, it really touched my heart. I was moved.”

Mortenson eventually raised $12,000 to build Korphe a school. And since 1996, his nonprofit Central Asia Institute has constructed nearly 80 schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, providing educational opportunities for 28,000 children including 18,000 girls.

“I think the real hope for peace in the world is education and literacy,” Mortenson said. “And the more I do this, the more I am convinced that education, literacy should be a global priority.”

In addition to fighting population explosions, promoting the education of girls in countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan can also help fight terrorism, Mortenson said. That’s because Muslim sons must receive their mothers’ permission before engaging in offensive jihad, or holy war.

“If a woman has an education, she’s much less likely to condone her son to get involved with violence and terrorism,” he said.

Literacy connection

Among the maze of tables assembled for the lunch Friday was one for Ilene Solomon Silber and her local book club.

The club recently finished reading Three Cups of Tea and attended the lunch as a preview to their meeting on Mortenson and the work.

“I enjoyed the book immensely, not as a literary work — not in that way — but just a way of documenting his incredible journey and his accomplishments,” Silber said.

Justice Pariente said she was moved by how Mortenson’s detour from a journey for his sister became his mission in life. She said his points about the importance of literacy also resonated.

“I never appreciated what a critical part of our overall prosperity is dependent on literacy,” Pariente said. “I think, for me, that’s really the take-home.”

(c) Palm Beach Daily News 2009

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