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.

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.

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.

Once you educate the boys, they tend to leave the villages and go search for work in the cities, but the girls stay home, become leaders in the community, and pass on what they've learned. If you really want to change a culture, to empower women, improve basic hygiene and health care, and fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls.

I've had two fatwas issued against me by despot mullahs opposed to education - and important to know that the great majority of Imams and Islamic religious leaders support education for all children.

Everywhere I go in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I am touched by the fierce desire for education, and the outpouring of hospitality and generosity. The most important ingredient is the relationships. The process takes "Three Cups of Tea". First you are a stranger, second a friend, and the third, you become family, but the process takes several years. Here in America, we have 8 second sound bytes, 2 minute football drills, and thirty minute power lunches.

It is my vision that we all will dedicate the next decade to achieve universal literacy and education for all children, especially for girls. More than 145 million of the world's children are deprived of education due to poverty, exploitation, slavery, gender discrimination, religious extremism, and corrupt governments. May Three Cups of Tea be a catalyst to bring the gift of literacy to each of those children who deserves a chance to go to school.