Three Cups of Tea: Educating Girls Educates A Community

I was shown the latest book by Greg Mortenson whilst  I was sitting on a bus in India.  I started reading the part which said when you educate boys you educate the individual when you educate girls you educate the community. I had tears in my eyes. It is incredible to me that girls have been seen as an economic liability and killed through genderocide because they are seen as a drain on the family. I am a woman and I have looked at other women and think about how they hold communities together, how they take responsibility for wellbeing and are the backbone of community. In India where I am I reflected on the little girls and how they are seen as less than boys. I was informed that women are seen as less than men. It is hard for me to resonate with this as an Australian where I am used to having my say. I don’t even think about gender roles, I get on with realising my dreams. I then turn to Afghanistan, a subject close to my heart as my former partner is Afghan. I have befriended ordinary Afghans and heard of the hardship first hand, particularly for girls. They are often not educated and in a war zone. Many men are are sent to the front and killed, you end up with more females than males and finding an income is extremely difficult. You see the rise of prostitution and exploitation of women as they are desperate to feed children. What a predicament.

The book Three Cups of Tea was shown to me by my friend Alex, who is a fellow clown, just a few weeks ago. We shared a room in Vellore, India on our clown tour. Then on the bus one of the other clowns hands me the next book just on impulse. I am not lost on the signs to look into this. Now I find out the book is about the promotion of peace. The tears in my eyes were a sign as well. So in writing this I feel inspired to definitely find this book and look into it. The book is about one man’s decision to make a difference by building schools for girls in Afghanistan. Interestingly enough I am on a humanitarian clown trip and Tim the organiser of the trip raised funds to build a school for tribal children, this was done in collaboration with Seb’s Project (India). The reason education is so important is so people are empowered to make fully informed decisions, to ensure their children are not exploited and to build a future vision. In the case of girls if they don’t access education they’re choices are restricted and they are relegated to a life of servitude and slavery. I do feel in the past women have been kept in ignorance so they are controllable and placed in a role to ensure that domestic tasks are done. Yet I feel and know there is so much potential in women and I am not lost on the male design of society and the way of thinking that is male. The female perspective has been intensely suppressed across the globe, the postion of women in society is so conditioned that many would not see anything wrong with the status quo. Yet in truth women are the nurturers of society, they are the teachers and the ones you go to for help when in crisis. They are natural leaders, educators and hard workers. To place them in an inferior position is extraordinary in my mind, yet we see all the time them working in service roles, as if women are here to serve men and communities. I say with great joy, women are here to do a lot more and to envisage their own dreams and live them. They are here as equal partners and an important counter-balance to the male energy which can be strcutural and destructive. Females will seek the peace and try to find solutions, so when we see discrimination so deeply embedded, the whole society loses. I will note here in India specifically in Kerala (Southern India) property was passed through the matrilineal system and women were perceived as equal. They were educated and it was found that the economic development was far superior to other states where the status of women was low. There are economic arguments, however my preference is the human argument, women are born equal as counterparts to males, one cannot exist without the other. Women deserve to be treated as the equals they are and released from the tethers that bind them to roles that restrict their freedom of speech, movement and occupation. I envisage a world fit for girls and women where no longer are they treated as sexual objects, carers and enhancement to status but seen for the talented and intelligent beings they are. Therefore, education has to be foundational to this freedom. As you free women to be themselves and reach their dreams you free the world to live and work to its highest potential. So a school is a wonderful and effective way to empower people to raise themselves up. Nothing is impossible when you decide to take responsibility for the shape of the world. Is inequality true? Does it bring happiness? Never.

The synopsis on the book is below. What is clear is that his life was fated to assist the people of Afghanistan. A very inspiring book.

#1 New York Times Bestseller
Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
By Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
VIKING Hardcover 2006 / PENGUIN Paperback 2007

In Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time , Greg Mortenson, and journalist David Oliver Relin, recount the journey that led Mortenson from a failed 1993 attempt to climb Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain, to successfully establish schools in some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. By replacing guns with pencils, rhetoric with reading, Mortenson combines his unique background with his intimate knowledge of the third-world to promote peace with books, not bombs, and successfully bring education and hope to remote communities in central Asia. Three Cups of Tea is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

In 1993 Mortenson was descending from his failed attempt to reach the peak of K2. Exhausted and disoriented, he wandered away from his group into the most desolate reaches of northern Pakistan. Alone, without food, water, or shelter he stumbled into an impoverished Pakistani village where he was nursed back to health.

While recovering he observed the village’s 84 children sitting outdoors, scratching their lessons in the dirt with sticks. The village was so poor that it could not afford the $1-a-day salary to hire a teacher. When he left the village, he promised that he would return to build them a school. From that rash, heartfelt promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time.

In an early effort to raise money he wrote letters to 580 celebrities, businessmen, and other prominent Americans. His only reply was a $100 check from NBC’s Tom Brokaw. Selling everything he owned, he still only raised $2,400. But his efforts changed when a group of elementary school children in River Falls, Wisconsin, donated $623.40 in pennies, who inspired adults to begin to take action. The 283 foot Braldu Bridge (pictured above) was completed in 1995 and the Korphe School (left) was completed in 1996. Since then, he’s established 78 schools. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived an armed kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. Yet his success speaks for itself.

“Three Cups of Tea is one of the most remarkable adventure stories of our time. Greg Mortenson’s dangerous and difficult quest to build schools in the wildest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan is not only a thrilling read, it’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.” –Tom Brokaw

“Greg Mortenson represents the best of America. He’s my hero. And after you read Three Cups of Tea , he’ll be your hero, too.” –U.S. Representative Mary Bono (R-Calif.)

“Three Cups of Tea is beautifully written. It is also a critically important book at this time in history. The governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan are both failing their students on a massive scale. The work Mortenson is doing, providing the poorest students with a balanced education, is making them much more difficult for the extremist madrassas to recruit.” –Ahmed Rashid, best-selling author of Taliban: Militant Islam and Oil in Central Asia and Descent Into Chaos.

“A Template For Peace” –Bloomsbury Review

Greg Mortenson has provided a Three Cups of Tea Reading Guide and a Question & Answer Interview for use in book clubs, interviews, classrooms, etc.