Co-author of the New York Times Best Seller Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace... One School at a Time and co-founder of the non-profit Central Asia Institute Greg Mortenson gave a lecture Monday morning to a packed Concert Hall in the Curtis R. Priem Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center.
Hosted by the Emma Willard School, Mortenson discussed the work that he has done in Afghanistan and Pakistan to promote peace through education. Having helped to build 78 schools in these countries, he is focused particularly on helping girls in the region have the opportunity to attend school, where they can learn to read and write.
His novel focuses on his experiences while in these two countries. A villager told Mortenson that, “the first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stranger; the second time, you are an honored guest, and the third time you become family.”
Mortenson is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee and founder of the Pennies for Peace program, which is a non-profit fundraising arm of the Central Asia Institute started back in 1993.
The program was founded by accident when Mortenson was trying to raise money for the first school he helped build in Pakistan. After he talked to classes at Westside Elementary in River Falls, Wis., the students began raising money for the project by collecting pennies. The children raised $623.45 and were the second-largest donors in the construction of that particular school.
Mortenson started his lecture with an African proverb that has served as the basis of his work: “If you educate a boy, you educate an individual; if you educate a girl, you educate a community.” He has found that educating young girls even to a fifth-grade level will do three things: reduce infant mortality, reduce the population explosion, and improve the basic quality of health and life itself.
“I’m very passionate about education, because I feel it is the key to peace,” he said. Mortenson shared his story of bringing schools to Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as the beginnings of his Pennies for Peace program with the audience.
He spoke about his many successes but also his many failures along the way, stating that everyone fails at some point or another; however, he said his main goal was just “to let people know they can make a difference.”
In an attempt to encourage peace abroad, Mortenson’s novel is now mandatory reading for those at the Pentagon undergoing anti-insurgency training. “We can’t solve poverty from a think tank in Washington,” he said. He remarked that we need to understand the culture in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Following his lecture, students from RPI and the Emma Willard School had a chance to pose questions to Mortenson. Questions ranged from his goals for the future to differences between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
