Gratitude for 'Cups of Tea' author - by Judge Jim Gray

Editor's note: Instead of his regular column, James P. Gray this week has decided to share a letter he sent to "Three Cups of Tea" author Greg Mortenson.

Mr. Greg Mortenson

Central Asia Institute

P.O. Box 7209

Bozeman, Montana 59771

Dear Greg,

In your travels, and carrying out your many obligations in helping to establish schools for boys and girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, you meet many people. As such, you will probably not recall me, but I was the last person for whom you signed a copy of your latest book, "Stones into Schools," after you gave your presentation at Freedom Fest in Las Vegas in January.

During our short time together, I tried to communicate to you my pride in what you are doing for Pakistan, Afghanistan, our great country and the world in helping to educate so many people — especially girls. This is certainly not easy in Central Asia! Now that I have finished reading your new book, I am even more in awe of your accomplishments.

Not only has your Central Asia Institute been successful in building schools and educating people, you have put into reality the lesson we tried to learn in the Peace Corps, which is that a project is only really successful if it can get along without you as the founder. This you demonstrated by CAI's assistance, but without your personal involvement, in the building of its most distant school — almost literally on the roof of the world — in Bozai Gumbaz in Northern Afghanistan. Congratulations!

From my perspective, you are actually doing what other people and even governments only really dream of doing. For only modest amounts of money you are building institutions of literacy, self-confidence, self-sufficiency and global good will. In other words, like the sub-heading of your book says, you are promoting peace with books not bombs in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To further that wonderful effort, please accept not only this enclosed financial contribution, but also my fervent thanks and best wishes. And also please receive my strong hope that you will take extra precautions for your safety in the future while you travel in these dangerous and remote areas in these difficult times!

But this letter also comes with a request. During our brief discussion, I mentioned to you my deeply felt belief that our nation's policy of drug prohibition is literally causing almost unimaginable problems here and all around the world. Yes, many of these drugs can be harmful, but it really is the drug money that is causing the greatest harm. So I particularly noted the comments in your book about the damage inflicted by the Taliban due to the growing of the poppy flower to make opium and heroin, and the resultant problems with addictions and smuggling that come from these acts.

So my request is that you use your future presentations in part to tell people the truth as you have seen it on this subject, wherever it is. My own understanding of that truth is synthesized by a quote from Winston Churchill, who said that "If you destroy a free market, you create a black market." From your perspective, and using your insights, please tell the world what this black market has done in Afghanistan and surrounding area, and the results you have seen.

From the deepest part of my heart, thank you again for what you have done and for what you continue to do. I know that CAI is not faith or religious-based, but nevertheless you are truly doing God's work.

Of course, so much remains to be done. Like you say at the end of your book, today there are over 120 million school-age children on this planet who remain illiterate and are deprived of education — two-thirds of them being girls — due to gender discrimination, poverty, exploitation, religious extremism and corrupt governments.

You further tell us from your own observations that educating girls leads to increased income not only for the girls, but also for their families and nation. At the same time educating girls generally increases nutrition and sanitation and reduces the birthrate, and infant and maternal mortality. Plus, educated women are more likely to insist upon the education of their own and neighboring children — especially the daughters. And in addition, educated girls and women are more likely to stand up for themselves, resist violence, and take part in government, which, in turn, reduces violence and corruption in government.

In our military actions in the regions you serve, our government is also trying to achieve the same goals as you are, but with fewer positive results, and a great deal greater human and financial cost. Why has the Taliban not attacked the schools your organization has established? Because the elders and other leaders of those communities requested the schools to be built in the first place, and actually provided the land, labor and some of the materials for the construction. Thus, attacks on those schools are seen as an attack upon the communities themselves, and the Taliban does not want to alienate those communities. In fact, in some cases the communities have persuaded the Taliban that an attack upon the schools would be seen as an insult to Islam itself!

Greg, you have been responsible for effective and lasting positive change in one of the most difficult regions of the world. I have met you, and even with all of your success, you are truly a humble man. But in reality you are a gift to us all. So thank you again for what you are doing for the world. Bless you, and go with God!

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions to America's Problems" (The Forum Press, 2010), and can be contacted at JimPGray@sbcglobal.net or through his website at http://www.JudgeJimGray.com.

Breaking the cycle of poverty - by Judge Jim Gray

One final thing I wanted to share with you from the FreedomFest convention in Las Vegas a few weeks ago was the program that has spawned an upcoming movie, "To Catch a Dollar." This program provides small loans to people who otherwise would not qualify for any financing, so that they can start their own small businesses and break out of the cycle of poverty.

There are several similar programs around the world that focus upon this activity, such as Technoserve and the Heifer Project, but the one that was presented at FreedomFest was started in Bangladesh by the an economist named Muhammad Yunus. He observed that many people on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder had feasible ideas for starting businesses, but were totally unable to borrow any money to get started. So, 30 years ago, Yunus loaned a total of $27 of his own money to 42 different people for that purpose.

Of course that amount of money went a lot farther back then and in that country, but it still was a truly modest amount. Nevertheless, Yunus was amazed at the results. Within six months all of the women he had loaned money to had paid it back, and all of them had a new business started of some kind.

So over time he put together the Grameen Bank that made similar small business starter loans – but just to women. No collateral was required, but the loans had to be paid back within a year, complete with interest at 7.5% per year. The program also required that groups of at least five potential borrowers get together and approve each borrower's individual "business plan," as well as a plan for repayment before any of the loans would be made. Then that group would be required to meet together for an hour each week, at which time they would make payments of 2%of the principal and also compare notes about how they were progressing. In a world in which there are more than 4 billion cell phones, there are only 1.5 billion bank accounts. So the Grameen Bank became a bank for the unbankable, and it has been successful.

One of the truly noteworthy features of this program is that if one woman in the group does not make her payments in a timely fashion, not only is she forced to leave the group, none of the other women in the group will ever be qualified to receive another loan. So that really brings home the concepts of accountability, participation, teamwork and problem-solving. Knowing this, the group members unfailingly screen out women from the program whom they believe to be unreliable. And once the program gets started, frequently many of the group members have such an incentive for their colleagues to succeed that they often become each other's customers.

All of this has also resulted generally in giving women a higher status in their communities, which has in turn reduced the abuse of women and allowed them to succeed in their desires to implement better education and nutrition of children in their communities.

In the last 30 years, the Grameen Bank has implemented its program in many other countries in the developing world, with the result that literally millions of women have improved their lives by developing their own businesses, such as catering, cake baking, hair dressing, sewing, food and ice cream sales carts, and many more. Thus at this time the bank has more than seven million borrowers and $1 billion in outstanding loans, at an average of $200 per loan, in countries like Zambia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico — and they also have a 98% repayment rate! And for all of these successes, Muhammad Yunus has been rightfully awarded a Nobel Prize.

Now Yunus has begun a similar program with the Grameen Bank on the streets of Queens, the New York City borough, and has plans to expand it to at least five additional states in our country. The differences in our programs are that the borrowers cannot be on welfare, and, given our economy, the minimum loan is $500 and the maximum is $3,000.

I find this not only to be amazing, but also embarrassing. A bank from Bangladesh comes to New York City — the financial capital of the world — to give people the opportunity to show their innovation and entrepreneurship and create thousands of small businesses. I thought that America led the world in innovation and entrepreneurship, but in this area it seems to be Bangladesh!

As they say in the movie, "Microcredit ignites the tiny economic engines of the rejected underclass of society. Once a large number of tiny engines start working, the stage can be set for bigger things."

Last week I talked about Greg Mortenson going to small villages in impoverished parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan and building schools with the commitment and assistance of the villagers themselves. And now we see a program from Bangladesh that empowers the lowest economic classes of women to get them on the road to financial solvency. Where are the headlines? Why can't our foreign aid system implement programs like those started by people like Mortenson and Yunus?

Instead, our government throws lots of money at foreign problems that, since there is seldom much accountability in where it goes, often result in foreign government officials driving fancy cars and their Swiss bank accounts getting fatter. But for about 1% of what our government now spends, these programs actually achieve positive and lasting results. So why are we not insisting upon a fundamental change in approach?

If you agree that we must change our approach, please use every opportunity to contact your representatives in Washington, and encourage them to implement these changes. And if you want more information about Muhammad Yunus' program with Grameen Bank, you can find it at http://www.tocatchadollar.com.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, and the author of "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions to America's Problems" (The Forum Press, 2010). He can be contacted at JimPGray@sbcglobal.net, or through his website at http://www.JudgeJimGray.com.

Effective fights for freedom - by Judge Jim Gray

This week I will continue to discuss the recent Freedom Fest convention in Las Vegas, where one of the speakers was Greg Mortenson.

You probably know of Mortenson as the co-author of the book "Three Cups of Tea," which describes his experiences in building about 50 schools for boys — and girls — in mountain villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His new book, "Stones into Schools," provides an update on this amazing success.

Mortenson is a fairly shy, humble and self-effacing man who stumbled upon his life's work project that is bringing a measure of peace to those two troubled and unstable lands. As was descending from his attempt to climb K-2, the second highest peak in the world, Mortenson became lost, sick and disoriented, whereupon he was nursed back to health by the people of one of the villages.

In gratitude, Greg promised to come back and build them a school, which he learned, was the most closely held desire of the villagers. Thereafter he kept his promise, and that began his story.

Mortenson does it right by employing the methods I was actually taught during my training for the Peace Corps. He understands that no program will be really successful unless it addresses what we in the Peace Corps called the "felt needs" of the community.

That means that the people in the community must actually want the project, and be materially involved in the decision-making and implementation process. And then the project only has a real chance to become permanent if it will continue to prosper without us.

In that regard, during training we were told the hypothetical story of a Peace Corps Volunteer, who was asked by one of the visiting Peace Corps staff members what he had accomplished during his two years of service.

The volunteer responded by pointing to some people working in a field and growing some drought-resistant grain, which he had introduced into his village, and pointing in another direction to the people working to install a new water treatment plant that he had initiated.

Finally, he pointed to a neighboring house in which a woman was working on her loom. She was doing work for the coop he had helped to start and that weaved native cloth in traditional designs to be sold in the tourist trade. And all of this was happening while he was sitting down and having breakfast.

In his work in building schools in remote mountainous villages, Greg Mortenson considers it essential to take the time to build up relationships with the tribal elders in the communities, listen to them, work with them, and be guided by them.

And he will not build a school unless the village is completely involved by donating the land, the necessary wood and the labor. As a result, none of his schools have been attacked by the Taliban, because the elders have influence and a strong following in their villages, and the Taliban does not want to alienate the villagers.

One example he discussed involved his being approached by the elders from a remote village in Afghanistan that was heavily infiltrated and controlled by the Taliban. Nevertheless, these elders requested that he help build a school in their village. Given the location, Mortenson was naturally skeptical of being able to do this, but he invited the elders to visit a school that he had built about 50 miles from their village.

When these elders met him at the school a few weeks later, they were all dressed in robes and turbans, and each was heavily armed with a machine gun. But, as he tells it in the book, when they saw the playground, the men dropped their guns on the ground and each man started playing on the swings and slides. And it was a sight to behold, with turbans flying in the wind and big smiles all over these stately and (for us) normally terrifying-looking men.

After a full hour and a half, Mortenson told them that it was time to stop playing and to address the issue at hand. So they sat down with him and soon invited him to come to their village to discuss the building of a school. Although it would normally be quite dangerous for a Westerner to go to that area, he later traveled there safely as their guest.

When Greg arrived the village elders unanimously agreed to his terms and requested a school — as long as it would have a playground! Mortenson agreed, but remained humorously concerned that the adults would be using the swings and slides so much that they might not be available for the children.

Before he left the village, Mortenson asked the chief elder (who is almost always the one who has the most silver in his beard) why they so badly wanted a school. The man responded that when he was 12 years old, the Soviets invaded the country.

So he was pulled out of school, and taught to hate and to fight, which he had been doing ever since. Thus he never really had a childhood. But now he not only wanted to make up for his own loss, he also wanted his children to have the childhood and education that he never had.

Our government actively solicits Greg Mortenson's advice, and, as a military veteran, he gives it openly and freely. But he goes out of his way not to accept any money from our government. If he were to do that, he would be seen as an arm or instrument of the government, and that would in effect terminate his effectiveness. And unfortunately, the government does not often follow his advice about developing relationships with the elders in the various villages.

But there is no reason why each of us cannot fight for freedom like Greg Mortenson — each in our own way. Obviously most of us cannot affect an entire world, but we can be effective in the smaller worlds that we do live in. And, like Greg Mortenson, we can begin by listening better to the people around us.

JAMES P. GRAY is a retired judge of the Orange County Superior Court, the author of "A Voter's Handbook: Effective Solutions for America's Problems" (The Forum Press, 2010) and can be contacted at jimpgray@sbcglobal.net or via his website at http://www.judgejimgray.com.