Beyond Three Cups of Tea Part 2: Female Literacy

In a previous post, I discussed one part of a lecture given at Brigham Young University by Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea.

During the lecture, Mortenson shared his belief that education is the key to promoting peace and should be our top global priority. He explained,

There are 120 million children in the world today who can’t go to school because of slavery, religious extremism, gender discrimination, corrupt governments. Seventy eight million are female…We can drop bombs, we can build roads, we can put in electricity, we can put in computers, but unless girls are educated, a society will never change.

What Illiteracy Means
As a mother, I shudder at the thought of my girls being unable to attend school and gain an education; as a lover of books and reading, I cannot imagine being unable to read. Yet in small villages like Korphe—where Mortenson built his first school—the female literacy rate is only about five percent. Half the men leave their homes to get jobs in other towns, with the women left to shoulder the work. As a result, women’s workloads have doubled in the last two to three decades. They may have a desire to learn, but the demands of taking care of their family’s basic needs are more pressing. But this lack of education takes its toll: when women suffer from illiteracy and malnutrition, their children and their communities suffer as well.

In such villages, one out of three children dies before the age of one. Jobs are scarce. And without a good prospect for the future, boys often leave their families to join extremist and terrorist groups, including the Taliban.

What Literacy Means
There is a solution, and Mortenson contends it is education. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Kolenda of the US Army is a former commander in Afghanistan, and he has seen the changes that education is bringing there. In an email to Mortenson he wrote:

I am convinced that the long term solution to terrorism is education. This is a conflict that will not be won with bombs and bullets, but with books and ideas that excite the imagination towards peace, tolerance, and prosperity. The thirst for education is palpable, and it is education that will make the difference whether the next generation grows up to be educated patriots or illiterate fighters. The stakes could not be higher.

If education is the key to promoting peace, then women are the key to education. Mortenson quoted an African proverb that states: If we educate a boy, we educate an individual. If we educate a girl, we educate a community. He said, “Several global studies show that educating girls does three important things:

1. Reduce infant mortality.
2. Reduce the population explosion.
3. Improve the quality of health and life itself."

With such high stakes riding on literacy, and specifically female literacy, Mortenson’s work becomes not only individually important, but globally so. The schools that he builds in Pakistan and Afghanistan have begun to make a difference.

The Desire
In 2000, at the height of the Taliban, there were 800,000 children in school in Afghanistan—mostly boys age 5–15. Today, there are 8.5 million children in school there, including 2.5 million girls. This is the greatest increase in school enrollment in any country in modern history. Mortenson gives proper credit for the astounding results, stating that “the real reason is because there is such a fierce desire for education.”

Mortenson illustrated this desire by describing how he has seen a mother carefully unfold the newspaper that has been wrapped around meat and vegetables at the marketplace, then ask her daughter to read the news to her. It is empowering to any individual to be able to read the news and understand what’s going on around her.

The Fear
But with desire comes opposition. In the last two years, the Taliban has bombed or destroyed over 800 schools in Afghanistan and 650 in Pakistan. Ninety percent of them are girls’ schools. "Why is a group of men so terrified of littls girls going to school?" Mortenson asks. "Because their greatest fear is not a bullet but the pen.” They fear that girl growing up, getting an education, and becoming a mother. They fear how her education will be passed on in her community. An educated mother educates her children; an educated mother refuses to allow her sons to be involved with terrorism or violence. The Taliban knows this, so they target illiterate, impoverished societies in order to more easily gain control over the young boys they recruit to fight.

The Hope
Of the schools targeted and destroyed by the Taliban, only one has been Mortenson’s. That is because the schools he works to build are built by the community. The individuals in each community work hard to help build their school. They sacrifice and sweat for it. They are invested and involved, and they will not allow it to be destroyed.

Haji Ali, the chief of Korphe, said to Mortenson, “It’s my life’s greatest sadness that I never learned how to read and write. It is my life’s greatest hope that my children and my grandchildren can learn to read and write. These words in these books make the stories that make wise the fools.” Such hope, such desire, is strong in the hearts of many.

Of Haji Ali, his friend and mentor, Mortenson explains, “This man who had only one time in his entire life left his village to go on a pilgrimage, who had no radio, no phone, no postal system, no internet, no newspaper… he had the vision and foresight to know that education is the lantern and the candle of hope for the future.”

The challenges many of you face in educating children may not involve terrorism and destruction, but they may be as difficult to overcome. Thank you for not giving up. Thank you for contributing to this goal of an educated world. Thank you for doing your part to carry that lantern, that candle, that hope.