Three Cups of Tea is an inspiring true story of how one person can make a huge difference in the world without actually having that grandiose objective. Greg Mortenson is an American mountaineer who averts death on one of the world’s deadliest peaks, K2, thanks to the ministrations of the Balti people living in a tiny, impoverished village in northern Pakistan. He decides to build them a school.
Arguably, it could be said that Greg Mortenson is helping to not only build schools, but promote a cultural shift in the education of girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Was it easy to begin? No, there was a lot of trial and error. The projects were and are on the other side of the world in very hard to reach and dangerous places. In this book, there is quite literally a steep learning curve. But, is he succeeding? You bet. As of this year, he has established over 131 schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Part of that success, I believe, is about starting small, not thinking too big. Mortenson wanted to build a school in the village that helped him. A very focused goal. (So often, it’s easy to get sidetracked and overwhelmed.) He finished that project and then started on another. Now look at all he’s done since then. http://www.ikat.org/ Oh…for Charleston, SC folks, Greg Mortenson will be speaking at the Carolina First arena on November 11th at 5:00 pm. Free event, but tickets will be distributed.
Have you ever volunteered for something ‘minor’ or what you might consider ‘menial’ and had it snowball into something much bigger or more impacting than you could have imagined?
The Volunteer Fringe 