Greg Mortenson
Three Cups of Tea: Promoting Peace and Building Nations, One School, One Child at a Time

AMS 2009 Annual Conference
Sunday, March 1, 10:30 AM – NOON
 

Of Greg Mortenson’s mission to promote peace “one school at a time,” NBC newscaster Tom Brokaw said, “It’s proof that one ordinary person, with the right combination of character and determination, really can change the world.” It is fitting that we close our conference on educating for peace and social justice by hearing Greg recount how his response to a little girl’s request transformed him from a solitary adventurer into an advocate for community-based education and literacy programs in forgotten areas of the world.

Since 1993, Mortenson has dedicated himself to establishing girls’ schools in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has become an expert on a region that few Americans know about but that is now the central arena in the War on Terror. From his unique perspective on the region’s culture, history, geopolitics, and development, Greg brings insightful commentary and stunning photography to illustrate his extraordinary efforts to promote peace and combat terrorism by educating girls.

Born in Minnesota, Greg grew up on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania. There his father founded Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre, and his mother, the International School Moshi. Greg served in the U.S. Army in Germany during the Cold War and later graduated from the University of South Dakota. Greg’s unexpected mission stems from the 1992 death of his younger sister, Christa, who succumbed to epilepsy after a lifelong struggle. To honor her memory, Greg decided to scale Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-highest mountain and considered the most dangerous to climb. Recovering from the attempt in Korphe, a remote village high in the Pakistani Himalayas, he discovered a group of children writing with sticks in the dirt and made an impetuous promise to help them build a school. Since 1996, he has established 78 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide a secular education to over 25,000 children, including 14,000 girls.

Greg is cofounder of the nonprofit Central Asia Institute (CAI), whose mission is to promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Many Montessori schools participate in Pennies for Peace, a CAI program that enlightens children in the United States about the world beyond their experience and shows them how they can bring hope and educational opportunities to children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, one penny at a time.

With journalist David Oliver Relin, Mortenson coauthored Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time, a New York Times Best Seller that was named a Best Asian Book of 2006 by Time magazine. The book was reviewed in issue no. 4 of Montessori Life (2007).

Greg has received numerous humanitarian awards, including the 2003 Peacemaker of the Year from the Benedictine Monks in Santa Fe, NM, the 2004 Freedom Forum Free Spirit Award from the National Press Club, the 2004 Jeanette Rankin Peace Award, the 2004 e-Town Achievement Award from National Public Radio, the 2005 Men’s Journal Anti-Terror Award, the 2007 Rotary Club International Paul Harris Fellow Award, the 2007 Kiriyama Award for a nonfiction book contributing to Pacific Rim peace and awareness, and the 2007 Excellence in Mountain Community Service Award from the Mountain Institute.

Photo: Winslow Studios

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