The accidental humanitarian
Greg Mortenson’s heroic efforts to educate children in Pakistan and Afghanistan have inspired millions and saved thousands of lives. He tells Katie Jacobs how a mountain trek changed his world view forever.
Getting lost was what it took for Greg Mortenson to find his way. After a failed attempt to climb K2, Pakistan’s notoriously gruelling peak, he wandered disoriented into the mountain village of Korphe, and ended up building a school there. “If I had reached the summit of K2, I’d still be a dirt-bag climber,” he laughs.
Thanks to his failure, Greg is now a world-famous humanitarian who has established 131 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan; a passionate advocate for female education; and the author of a bestselling book, Three Cups of Tea, required reading for US military commanders and the US Special Forces in Afghanistan. “If we want to succeed, we must first make mistakes,” he says. “We’re conditioned to think that failure is the end of the road, but there’s no such thing as failure, just a way to find a path to the solution.” For Greg, it was a path to a new vocation; for the children he helps, a path to a brighter future.
Greg’s story, as many IB World Schools know, is the stuff of legend. Raised in Tanzania, he had a “paradise” childhood. His father set up a hospital, and his mother founded the International School Moshi, an IB World School in the north of the country. In his teens, his family moved to the USA, where he later trained as a nurse. After a spell in the US Army, he settled down to a life of nursing and climbing. But everything changed when his sister Christa died of an epileptic seizure. To honour her memory, Greg decided to scale K2, the second highest mountain on earth, and perhaps the most challenging.
On failing to reach the summit and becoming separated from the rest of his group, he was nursed back to health by the people of Korphe village and, moved by watching the children scratching multiplication tables in the dust with sticks, resolved to build them a school. One school turned into two, which turned into 50, and then 100… Greg and his charity, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), are now responsible for the education of more than 58,000 children, 44,000 of them girls.
The importance of female education is perhaps Greg’s greatest passion. According to UNICEF, there are 120 million children deprived of the right to learn, and 78 million of them are girls. “Educating girls is the single most important investment you can make in a developing country,” he says, explaining that when women are educated, the infant mortality rate drops, the population explosion is curbed and a village’s quality of life improves.
Teaching the younger generation leads to a “wildfire of literacy” throughout the community. “Hundreds of times, I have seen a girl come home from the bazaar with goods wrapped in newspaper. Her mother carefully unwraps the paper and asks her daughter to read the news to her,” he says. “It’s transforming for a woman to find out what’s going on in the world around her.” CAI schools also contain women’s vocational centres, which ensure education is spread beyond the children.
The world today is a dynamic place: we’re all citizens of the universe. The IB taught me to have more awareness of global citizenship, and to look at education as a lifelong learning process.
An obviously shy man, Greg becomes ardent when he talks about the Pakistani girls he has seen grow into educated women. “Aziza from Charburson Valley was the first girl in her area to get an education,” he says. “It wasn’t easy. She was the only girl at primary school and the boys threw stones at her. In middle school they stole her notebooks. In high school, some teachers refused to teach her. But she graduated top of her class. Now she works in maternal healthcare in her valley. Previously, up to 20 women died in childbirth there each year. Since she started work nine years ago, not one woman has died giving birth.”
As he talks about Fozia from the Kashmir, the first woman in the region to pass her bar exam – she is specializing in land rights for women – or Shakila from Baltistan, who is finishing medical school, it’s impossible not to be moved. However, not everyone agrees with Greg’s philosophy and he has come under fire (sometimes literally) for his insistence on educating girls.
The Taliban have destroyed hundreds of girls’ schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the past three years, but for Greg this is a sign his work is too crucial to stop. “Why do men fear female education?” he asks. “Their greatest fear is not a bullet but a pen. If a girl gets an education, grows up and becomes a mother, men lose their ability to control society.” He explains that educated women are less likely to let their sons join the Taliban or go on violent jihad (boys must ask their mother’s permission to do so).
Greg’s publishers initially released Three Cups of Tea with the subtitle: “One man’s mission to fight terrorism”. He insisted it was changed to “One man’s mission to promote peace.” When he received criticism after 9/11 for teaching about Islam and the Arabic language, he overcame his shyness and began speaking all over the world: “If we want a legacy of peace, we have to build bridges instead of walls.”
With such an ideology, it’s not surprising to learn that Greg studied IB Diploma courses at the international school his mother set up, if only for a year. “I have very fond memories of school,” he says. “There were students from two dozen different countries and all major faiths. To me, that was the way the world worked.
“The world today is a dynamic place: we’re all citizens of the universe. The IB taught me to have more awareness of global citizenship, and to look at education as a lifelong learning process.” He has two children and plans to give them the same rich international education he had.
Not all of Greg’s experiences in global education have been easy or pleasant, but he’s sure he has the best job in the world. “It’s an honour and a blessing,” he says. On his bathroom mirror, he keeps a note. It reads: “When your heart speaks, take good notes.” It’s a fitting maxim for a man who won’t settle for the status quo.
CV - Greg Mortenson
1957 - Born in Minnesota, USA
1958-73 - Moves to Tanzania and grows up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro
1973 - Returns to the USA with his family
1977-99 - Serves in the US army in Germany and receives a commendation medal
1983 - Graduates from South Dakota University with an associate degree in nursing and a bachelor’s degree in chemistry
1993 - Climbs Pakistan’s K2 mountain to honour his sister, a year after her death. Wanders into a village called Korphe and promises to build a school there
1994 - Is inspired by children at Westside Elementary School, Wisconsin, who raise 62,340 ‘pennies’ (US cents) for the Korphe school, to start the Pennies for Peace programme
1995 - Marries clinical psychologist Dr Tara Bishop after a whirlwind six-day romance
1996 - Survives an eight-day kidnap ordeal by Taliban sympathizers, who eventually release him and give him money to build schools
Founds the Central Asia Institute (CAI)
1997 - Completes the Korphe school in Pakistan
2006 - Co-authors the bestseller Three Cups of Tea with journalist David Oliver Relin
2009 - Receives the Sitara-e-Pakistan (Star of Pakistan), the country’s highest civilian award
Completes the 131st school in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan to be established or significantly supported by the CAI
Hear Greg at the IB Asia pacific Conference
Greg Mortenson will be speaking at the annual regional conference, held from 25-28 March 2010 in Singapore. With a theme of ‘Unlocking the treasure within’, the conference will explore different areas of the IB mission statement. To find out more, visit the IB conference pages.
