Greg Mortenson

Work benefits girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan villages

A failed attempt to scale the treacherous K2 Himalayan peak led mountaineer Greg Mortenson to learn his true calling: building schools for girls in impoverished villages across Pakistan and Afghanistan. But his path toward becoming a humanitarian actually started in the shadow of another mountain, Africa’s Mount Kilimanjaro.

It was there in Tanzania that Mortenson grew from infancy to adolescence and learned by example from his determined parents — teachers with a Lutheran missionary society — how to listen to, work with and trust local people in efforts to build better communities and a better world.

Mortenson’s book, Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations … One School at a Time, has become must reading at the Pentagon for generals who would learn how to build relationships with tribal leaders in the rugged mountains of Central Asia.

Mortenson’s personal story is improbable: a homeless rock-climber and trauma nurse who wrote hundreds of letters to celebrities hoping to raise the $12,000 needed to build that first school in Korphe, Pakistan, where villagers nursed Mortenson back to health after his retreat from K2 in 1993.

The letters yielded almost nothing, but schoolchildren contributed $623.45 in pennies, and a wealthy former climber put up the rest. Mortenson flew back to Pakistan, bought materials and drove them up into the mountains in a colorful Bedford truck. There the surprised village leaders said that first they needed a bridge over the Braldu River that skirts the village — so Mortenson built that with them as well. It took three years to complete the projects, but the Central Asia Institute (CAI) was off and running.

Now there are nearly 100 schools in remote villages across Pakistan and Afghanistan that have enrolled 51,000 pupils — two-thirds girls — and dozens more temporary schools in refugee camps that sprang up after the devastating 2005 earthquake.

After years on a shoestring budget, the Bozeman, Montana-based CAI now raises and spends millions each year building schools and working to improve lives.

Mortenson has endured despite two fatwahs, or religious edicts, issued by local mullahs against him and his schools (higher Muslim authorities nullified the rulings) and being kidnapped by gunmen in Waziristan in northwest Pakistan. When mullahs said a school planned for Lalander, Afghanistan, should teach only boys, Mortenson’s team refused to proceed. The mullahs relented.

“In Africa I learned a tribal proverb as a child that I’ve never forgotten: If you educate a boy, you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl, you educate a community,” said Mortenson, who trekked to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro when he was 11.

Mortenson was raised from infancy to age 14 in Tanzania. His mother helped organize the International School Moshi and his father led efforts to build a 640-bed hospital, the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center.

Mortenson recalled that his father “always put local people in charge, which was unusual at the time, and he insisted on it.” At the hospital ribbon-cutting, the elder Mortenson predicted that within 10 years Tanzanian doctors would head every department — and that is what happened. “It’s your country. It’s your hospital,” the elder Mortenson said at the ribbon-cutting.

His father’s life was cut short by cancer at 48. “One of my great regrets is that he didn’t live long enough to see that his instincts about empowering local people were not only vindicated but also inspired some copycats — because in my own way, I’ve adopted the exact same approach in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” said the mountain-climbing son.

(c) America.gov 2009

http://www.america.gov/st/develop-english/2009/August/20090806152720akllennoccm0.8609125.html?CP.rss=true