Context:
Greg Mortenson, co-author of Three Cups of Tea, changed the world. In 1993, he tried to climb K2, the second tallest mountain in the world. During this attempt, he fell ill and got lost. He ended up in the small Pakistani village of Korphe. The villagers there nursed him back to health until he recovered. To repay the village, he asked what he could do for them. They told him that they did not have a school, nor did any of the small villages in the region. He returned to America, raised the money necessary, and founded the Central Asia Institute. Since then, he has built many schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan, all of which educate girls as well as boys.
Wikipedia says about him, “Mortenson believes that education and literacy for girls globally is the most important investment all countries can make to create stability, bring socio-economic reform, decrease infant mortality, decrease the population explosion, and improve health, hygiene, and sanitation standards globally.[6] Mortenson believes that “fighting terrorism” only perpetuates a cycle of violence and that there should be a global priority to “promote peace” through education and literacy, with an emphasis on girls’ education. “You can drop bombs, hand out condoms, build roads or put in electricity, but unless the girls are educated, a society won’t change,” is an often-quoted statement made by Mortenson. Because of community “buy-in,” which involves getting villages to donate land, subsidized or free labor (“sweat equity”), wood and resources, the schools have local support and have been able to avoid retribution by the Taliban or other groups opposed to girls’ education.”
He also founded the charity organization Pennies for Peace, which “focuses on raising cross-cultural awareness through education to promote peace”. All proceeds go to building more schools in regions in which education is sparse.
Mortenson was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009 and 2010, and was one of a handful of finalists, before losing out to Barack Obama.
