Because most of the girls were still in mourning and all of them had lost their textbooks, even pencils and pens, Shaukat Ali began the first classes by reading to them from poetry and religious texts. "Reading, literature, and spirituality are good for the soul," he told them. "So we will start with these studies.

Slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects.

I decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.

You can hand out condoms, drop bombs, build roads, or put in electricity, but until the girls are educated a society won’t change.

When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children.

Certainly I am sometimes afraid, but my hope is greater than my fear, and the biggest enemy we all face is ignorance which breeds hatred, whether it be in America, or Afghanistan, or anywhere. We owe it to our children that we may give them all a legacy of peace, but it will take courage and compassion.

But what I really believe is education is a key to pretty much everything - prosperity, economics, peace, stability.