Society - March 2007 | The Global Intelligencer

To build a school it takes three cups of tea

by Cate Montana

BOZEMAN, MT - KORPHE, Pakistan – For 600 years the tiny village of Korphe remained isolated from the rest of the world, perched high on a cliff over the Braldu River deep in the inaccessible reaches of northern Pakistan’s Karakoram mountain range. The people of Korphe toiled for a meager existence, channeling melt waters from the glaciers into rocky fields and apricot orchards. The nearest doctor was a week’s walk away. The village children suffered from a form of malnutrition, and one in three babies died before reaching their first birthday.

In September 1993, the world of Korphe changed, and so did the life of an exhausted American mountain climber. Separated from his team after a failed summit attempt on K2, the world’s second highest mountain known to climbers as “The Savage Peak,” Greg Mortenson was lost and didn’t even know it.

Pennies for Peace

by Cate Montana

When I talk about extremist mullahs fiercely opposing girl’s education, I’m talking about the minority. But they fear the pen far more than the sword because they know that when those girls who have an education become mothers they've lost their control over that society.

Greg Mortenson

EVERGREEN, CO- There's an African proverb that says if you educate a boy you educate an individual. But if you educate a girl you educate and help a community. Take the story of Aziza from the Charpusan Valley in Pakistan along the Afghan border as an example.

The first girl to go to school in her whole valley of about 4000 people, when Aziza was in first and second grade the boys threw stones at her trying to get her not to go to school. In third and fourth grade her teachers refused to teach her because she was female. So she sat outside and listened through the window and got school stuff from her brothers. In high school the boys made one last attempt to make sure she didn't graduate by stealing her notebooks.