One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time

When the world seems its most discouraging, I search out stories of ordinary people whose lives can inspire me.

Greg Mortenson is such a man.  A former US Army medic, he's made it his mission to build girls' schools in an area known as Baltistan, "Little Tibet" in the far north of Pakistan.

Here rural schools are rare, girls' schools even rarer, as the education of girls is condemned by religious extremists as un-Islamic. The Jafarabad school, along with 63 others in equally poor areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, exists thanks to the efforts of a brave foreigner the locals call 'Dr Greg', who has been described as 'a real-life Indiana Jones' and spoken of as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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His key allies include clerics, warlords, military officers, foreign mountaineers and several former members of the Taliban - one of whom is now a teacher at one of his schools in Kashmir - and an army of ordinary villagers desperate for their children to receive an education. 'What I'm good at is putting together a team, finding the right people,' he says. He has no pretentions to any other ability except willpower. 'I'm just an average guy. I had to work really hard in school. Learning never came easy to me, but I've got those Midwestern ethics that force you to persevere.'
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A trauma nurse and former mountain climber, he was climbing Mt Everest when a buddy came down with altitude sickness and Greg stayed with him, probably far too long because he became sick himself.  On his way back, he became separated from his group and wandered sick into a tiny village where they nursed him to health.  Only when he recovered did he realize how generous they had been and how poor they were.  He promised to come back and build a school and he did, with no great plan, winging it all the way.

He's set up more than 60 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. 
In May 2005 riots broke out in Baharak, the gateway to Afghanistan's Wakhan province, after Newsweek magazine erroneously reported that a Koran had been flushed down a lavatory at Guantanamo Bay. Every building with any connection to foreigners was burned by furious mobs, including the offices of the UN. But Mortenson's CAI school was left untouched - protected by village elders who saw it as their own.

His book has now sold over 850,000 copies. 

"Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time" (Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin)

You can read more of this most inspiring story at Free to Learn.