Does the name Greg Mortenson mean anything to you? A hint: He was an American recently nominated for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. You’re right; it was another American (Barack Obama) who was awarded the prize and his name you do remember.
Greg Mortenson is a person with whom you ought, I think, become acquainted.
In the early 1990’s Mortenson, part of a team, attempted to climb K2, the second highest mountain in the world and a neighbor of Mount Everest. Short of the top and caught in a storm, Mortenson became separated from his party. Alone he tried to stumble down the mountain. He didn’t succeed but he did, almost literally, fall into a remote village where he was taken in, cared for over many months and lived to pursue a far different life than in his earlier years.
These desperately poor people eking out a living in one of the world’s most inhospitable landscapes shared what little they had so Mortenson might live. Their actions were an epiphany for Mortenson. Profoundly thankful, he asked what he might do for them. Totally uneducated themselves, they asked for a school for their children, especially for their daughters. In this country wanting to educate young girls was unthinkable. But not for these villagers in a remote corner of the world.
Against all odds and contrary to local traditions, Mortenson dedicated himself to fulfilling the wish for a school. Then, inspired by what the gift of a school meant for these people, Mortenson steered his life toward providing schools for people in remote, primitive and bureaucratically forgotten places in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Operating only with contributions coming from lectures and speeches throughout the U.S. and without federal financial support, Mortenson developed a plan. Local people had to provide a prepared site plus stone or bricks and basic laborers. Central Asia Institute (CAI), Mortenson’s legal vehicle for receiving and dispersing contributions, provided the rest. CAI also salaried teachers -- pitifully little but competitive -- and paid for school supplies. For $75,000 CAI could build a four or five room school.
As of the end of 2009, Mortenson, through CAI has built 131 schools -- mostly elementary, many secondary and a few medical, English and computer schools -- serving 58,000 students.
If you would like to be informed and inspired with an antidote to today’s woes, wars and inhumane conflicts, read "Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time," the moving story of how Mortenson got started, and then "Stones into Schools: Promoting Peace with Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan." This is the rest of the story up to date.
If you have ever wondered what one person can do to make a difference, read and learn. I guarantee you will be moved, be inspired, and you may even be prompted to further the mission, not with a hammer or a trowel but with a check.
Both books are available at the Daniel Island library.
