Central Asia Institute

I think what this Greg Mortenson dude is doing is awesome. He is teaching underprivileged and undereducated people for nothing more than the satisfaction of helping people out. It says a lot about his character for him to be doing that. You rarely see that in this day and age and to see it really brings a joy to me. I'm sure it brings him even greater joy. After seeing the villagers' desire to learn, he vowed to come back and build them a school. Now, a lot of people would probably have made a similar promise but Mr. Mortenson actually followed through on his promise.  Now, they are more focused on teaching the females and at first they may seem kind of sexist but when you listen to why, it makes sense. By teaching the females, it helps “bring down mortality rates, reduce the population explosion and increase the basic quality of health and of life itself.” Not only is he assisting with the education of the people, but he is also helping to provide clean drinking water and giving the people skills that can be used to help them further earn income. The Central Asia Institute also assists these people by having scholarships that help people further their educations. It was pretty cool to see that guy at the bookstore that was happy he was getting a computer to make it easier for him in his studies. I also think it is great how he didn’t go in to the region and into these villages and just tell them how they were going to run things. Community elders are still responsible for making decisions. I believe that assisting these people will have a better effect in presenting a good image of the US and Americans to the area’s people. Like the video said, “a war on terror just creates more terror”. It proves that not all Muslims are “terrorists” or bad people. The villagers nursed this American back to health after he fell ill when he attempted to climb the mountain without expecting anything in return. In conclusion, I am really proud of Mr. Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute for all that they are doing for the people of Central Asia and hope that they can continue to do so. It is so great to see that they are helping people who are not their color, race or the same religion and do not appear to be doing so for the money.