Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortenson
Greg Mortensonis an American humanitarian, professional speaker, writer, and former mountaineer. He is a co-founder and former executive director of the non-profit Central Asia Institute, from which he was forced to resign as executive director following an investigation by the Montana attorney general, and the founder of the educational charity Pennies for Peace...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
exist good help militant mosques schools seem teach work
Many of these schools and mosques are doing good work to help Pakistan's poor. But some of them seem only to exist to teach militant jihad.
school commitment broken
...education is a sacred thing, and the pledge to build a school is a commitment that cannot be surrendered or broken, regardless of how long it may take, how many obstacles must be surmounted, or how much money it will cost. It is by such promises that the balance sheet of one's life is measured.
school kids firsts
Once I started the first school, I realized this is what my life is meant to be, is to promote education and help kids go to school, and that's very clear.
wise home school
A wise man from my home once told me that these mountains have seen far too much suffering and killing, and that each rock and every boulder you see represents a mujahadeen who died fighting either the Russians or the Taliban. Then the man went on to say that now that the fighting is finished, it is time to build a new era of peace-and the first step in that process is to take up the stones and start turning them into schools.
military school thinking
I'm no military expert, and these figures might not be exactly right,' I said. 'But as best I can tell, we've launched 114 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Afghanistan so far. Now take the cost of one of those missiles, tipped with a Raytheon guidance system, which I think is about $840,000. For that much money, you could build dozens of schools that could provide tens of thousands of students with a balanced, non extremist education over the course of a generation. Which do you think will make us more secure?
democracy land people plug trying
We're trying to plug in democracy. You can't do that. You can't just tell people to vote. You have to put in education, and land ownership.
giving halfway kids purity raised reaching
They raised 62,340 pennies. These kids, in all their purity and innocence, were reaching out to kids halfway around the world.
certainly checked nearly university
If you look at the 9/11 highjackers, certainly they were educated, some even had university degrees, but nobody really checked their mothers, who were nearly all illiterate.
hymns singing pakistan
The tune was too ingrained for Mortenson to consider the novelty of this moment- an American, lost in Pakistan, singing a German hymn in Swahili.
motivational bombs terrorism
The solution to terrorism is education, not bombs.
people tea important
Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.
christian mother father
My father ended up starting the Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, which is on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. My mother started a school.
long mentor valleys
Yes, I first visited Korphe village, Braldu valley, Baltistan, Pakistan, after failing to summit K2 in 1993, and met Haji Ali, a long time dear mentor and friend. My second visit to Korphe was in 19
christian thinking together
Liberals, conservatives, Muslims, Jews, Christians, and I find - I think education is something that can bring us together.