Waging Peace, One School At A Time
Oprahs school for girls opens Tuesday - CNN.com
Oprah Winfrey is so rich, she can do just about anything she wants to — and frequently gets lots of publicity doing so. Her Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa is one of her best ideas yet, and has garnered a great deal of attention. This attention will feed back into more donations and support, and make the school an even bigger success.
Last March, ABC’s Good Morning America did a story on Greg Mortenson and his mission to build schools in the wilds of Central Asia. I haven’t heard a peep about his efforts amidst the brouhaha about Oprah, and I think that’s a sad thing. The Central Asia Institute doesn’t have a big celebrity’s deep pockets behind it, and depends mostly on much smaller donations, many of which come from American school children who do “penny drives” in their communities. This effort is at least as important as Oprah’s, and goes far beyond just educating a few girls. It also goes forth in a part of the world which is notably more dangerous.
So, I encourage all my readers to make even a small donation to the Central Asia Institute again this year. It certainly wouldn’t hurt, and it would probably do some good.
January 4th, 2007 at 10:56pm
It’s her money, but $40 million to build a school with only 152 students in a year is not going to have the impact that the money could have had. I don’t know that the world needed an Eton for girls, especially in a country with as many problems as South Africa.
January 14th, 2007 at 8:40am
Thanks for your encouraging, inspiring notes. I just returned from six weeks in Afghanistan and Pakistan. With regards to costs, a penny buys a pencil, and it cost about $ 1 per student per month in the third world and including rural Afghanistan and Pakistan to educate a child. For $ 40 million (which is also the cost to purchase 40 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles) about 1,600 schools could be built in rural Pakistan or Afghanistan and provide education to about 500,000 children.
The Penguin paperback version of ‘Three Cups of Tea’ will be released on January 31st. The publishers have agreed to change the subtitle from ‘one man’s mission to fight terrorism…one school at a time’ to ‘one man’s mission to promote peace…one school at a time’.
Amazon.com will donate 7% of all purchases of this book or any books through www.threecupsoftea.com website, directed to Amazon.com to our girls’ education scholarship fund.
Thanks for this blog - my 42 year old wife Tara - also enjoys your muses.
Thanks and peace -
Greg Mortenson
Central Asia Institute
www.threecuspoftea.com