[Vision2020] Creating Schools, And Bridges, To Children

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of CBS News' "Sunday Morning" at:

http://tinyurl.com/9qod8w
 
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Creating Schools, And Bridges, To Children

Greg Mortenson's Inspiring Tale Has Helped Raise Money To Build Schools 
For Asian Students ... A Penny At A Time
 
(CBS) A cup of kindness is what most of us take on New Year's Eve. A cup 
of kindness - and much more - is what one hard-working man tries to give 
to the world every single day. What he does and how he does it is our 
Sunday Morning cover story by Anthony Mason: 

This story begins in 1993 when American Greg Mortenson set out to climb 
K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, on the northern border of 
Pakistan. 

"My sister Christa died of severe epilepsy suddenly at age 23 in '92." 
Mortenson told Mason. "She had an amber necklace she got in Africa and I 
wanted to put it on top of the mountain." 

But he didn't make it all the way. 

It's a tale that resonates with tens of thousands of schoolchildren the 
world over, like these third graders in Rockford, Ill. 

As Hannah told it, "As he climbed farther up the mountain, it got harder 
to breathe…" 

"So he went down," continued Grace. 

"He ended up in Pakistan," Austin said. 

"They thought he was a giant," Riley said, "'cause he was so tall and 
they're so short." 

Mortenson laughed: "I was completely exhausted and emaciated. I was kind 
of slumping off the mountain. I had to walk 58 miles to get to the nearest 
village." 

The villagers took him in and nursed him back to health. 

"They had very little but they gave me everything they had," Mortenson 
said. "And I was very touched by their hospitality." 

The children continued relating his story: How a guide led him into town, 
where he saw that children were not at school. And when he asked the 
children where their school was, he was shown a piece of flat ground. 

"I guess I had that kind of 'eureka' moment," Mortenson said. "I 
immediately, or in a rash moment, I said, 'I promise, when I come back 
I'll build you a school.' 

"And little did I know that'd change my life forever." 

And not only Greg Mortenson's life, but the lives of thousands of 
Pakistani and Afghani, children living in remote, war-torn regions. 
Suddenly this 36-year-old E.R. nurse from Montana who'd been living off 
odd jobs had found a purpose. 

"I had many lessons to learn," he said. 

He shares those lessons in his book, "Three Cups of Tea" (Penguin), which 
has been on the bestseller list for some 100 weeks.

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"Three Cups of Tea"
http://tinyurl.com/ay4pcs

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His first lesson would be a hard one: raising money to build a school. 

"Well, I had no clue how to raise money," he told mason. "I looked up the 
names of 580 celebrities and movie stars and sports heroes and then I 
proceeded over ten weeks to hand-type 580 letters. 'Dear Michael 
Jordan,' 'Dear Sylvester Stallone,' and so on. And I thought, that's not 
too bad. 

"Well, guess what happened? Nothing happened." 

Next: He sold everything he owned, and lived in his car. 

His mother, the principal at Westside Elementary School in River Falls, 
Wisconsin, invited him to come and talk to her kids. 

>From that talk, another lesson. Answers come when you least expect them. 

"A fourth grader named Jeffrey came up to me and he looked at me deadpan 
and said, 'I have a piggy bank at home. I'm gonna help you raise money for 
that school.' I didn't think anything of it." 

But six weeks later, that school had raised $623.40 … in pennies. 

"It was the biggest check I had ever gotten!" 

When Mortenson spread the word of what the children had done, checks from 
adults started pouring in. He raised the $12,000 he thought he'd need and, 
a year after his first visit, he returned to Pakistan to meet with the 
village leader, Hajai Ali. 

"And he said, 'If you want to build a school, first we're gonna have to 
build a bridge.'" Mortenson laughed. "So I had to come back!" 

"You hadn't counted on that," Mason said. 

"Come back to America, raise $10,000 more." 

It took another year, but in 1995, Mortenson returned again to the 
village. 

"And in 10 weeks they built a 284-foot span bridge over the Bralda River. 
And it was an amazing engineering feat. They carried five 800-pound steel 
cables 18 miles up the river. 

"When they built the bridge in ten weeks I realized that they were very 
serious about a school." 

By now, Mortenson had co-founded his non-profit, Central Asia Institute, 
and was beginning to gain support for what he was doing. 

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The Central Asia Institute
http://tinyurl.com/9qod8w
 
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But the key lesson he needed to learn was yet to come ... 

"I spent six months living in the village trying to get the school built 
and we weren't doing very well," he said. "And one day Hajai Ali took me 
by the side and he said, 'If you really want to build a school here, son, 
you need to sit down and be quiet and let us do the work.' And in six 
weeks the school got built. I had to let go and let the community be 
empowered." 

Army Lt. Colonel Christopher Kolenda, now stationed at the Pentagon, saw 
Mortenson's work firsthand in Afghanistan. 

"Greg is a national treasure," Kolanda told Mason. "And the work that his 
organization does has a tremendous impact in every village it touches. 

"One of the key things that Greg and his organization do is they do a 
tremendous amount of coordination with the elders to make sure that 
they're gonna not only build the school but they're going to make sure 
it's got an education program, and that they're going to manage it after 
the fact." 

Soon Mortenson began to realize his schools could become a building block 
for peace if he could bring girls into the classroom. Because when those 
educated girls grow up to become mothers, they are less likely to want 
their children to go to war. 

"The Taliban were mainly targeting illiterate, impoverished society to get 
recruits because educated women were refusing their sons to join the 
Taliban," he said. 

Because of this, Mortenson says, the Taliban often attacks schools that 
girls attend. But, in 15 years, only one of his schools has been hit. 

"Why aren't they bombing your schools?" Mason asked. 

"Well, our schools are very desired by the communities." 

"And other ones aren't?" 

"The missing link there is that there's no local community involvement," 
Mortenson said. "Outside contractors come in and plunk in a beautiful 
school." 

"He's got exactly the right strategy," Kolenda said. "Villagers built it 
with their own hands. They don't want to see anybody to mess with it." 

Colonel Kolenda, who led an Army unit in Afghanistan in a region around 
one of Mortenson's schools, noticed something remarkable: 

"The level of violence emanating from that area as a part of this entire 
effort dropped precipitously," he said. 

To the third graders of Rockford, Ill., this is one lesson they are happy 
to explain. 

"People would respect each other instead of being all mean and grumpy," 
Savannah said. 

"I don't wanna have any wars with them anymore," Umariam said. 

Kyle said, "Because we really need to stop so more people in our country 
will stop dying and we can have happier life instead of just worrying 
about wars." 

Toward that end, they pooled their pennies. Their school donated nearly 
$3,000 to Pennies for Peace, Mortenson's children's organization. 

"I lost a lot of pennies but it's for a good cause," Savannah said. 

"When I look in the eyes of my children, I see the children in Pakistan 
and Afghanistan," Mortenson said, "and I think we should do everything we 
can to leave our children a legacy of peace. Those first few kids in 
school is kind of like planting a seed of hope." 

Greg Mortenson's relentless focus on the next generation, both here and 
overseas, seems to be making an impression. So far, his organization has 
built 78 schools, and eight more are under construction. 

He plans to keep building schools as long as there are lessons to learn … 
and teach. 

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapse Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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