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.
Greg MortensonMy work to promote education and literacy in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan has become my life's mission. This takes a full-time commitment 365 24/7.
Greg MortensonI decided in '96 to dedicate my life to mostly promoting literacy and education for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Greg MortensonBecause 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.
Greg Mortenson