CAROLINA FRIENDS SCHOOL
Hosts
GREG MORTENSON
Founder of 58 Schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Helps Celebrate 5 Years of the CFS
Afghan Sister Schools Project
At Carolina Friends School on February 28th, Greg Mortenson presented a vision for peace in our world. It is a vision that he is making a reality by 
ending illiteracy, building religious understanding, and training teachers in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Greg—who has founded 58 schools in the face of war, earthquakes, and fatwehs from Islamic fundamentalists—spent the afternoon conversing with 300 Carolina Friends School students and in the evening he spoke to 450 adults. He presented his 13 years of work and how he and a small international coalition are making a better future for thousands of children, and their villages, in this war torn region.
Greg visited Carolina Friends School to help celebrate the school’s 5 years of support for two schools in Afghanistan. The Carolina Friends School’s Afghan Sister School Project has raised $35,000 to buy books and supplies for those schools and to provide training so teachers can become accredited to teach in the schools. These funds have also provided training for the teachers in identifying and counseling children with emotional problems related to being raised in a war zone. The number of children suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome in the area is very high.
In addition to financial support, the Project has created lasting relationships among students at CFS and in Afghanistan. For five years students at CFS and students in Afghanistan have been sharing their dreams, hopes, fears, and everyday lives through journals, letters, photos, art, and stories of everyday life.
The work with schools in Afghanistan Sister School Project is a collaborative effort between Carolina Friends School and another Quaker organization, the American Friends Service Committee.
During Mr. Mortenson's visit, more than 300 CFS Middle School and Upper School students squeezed into the new Upper School Meeting Hall to hear Greg in the afternoon. He answered questions, showed slides of the mountains and people he works among in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and talked about his work in the region.
That evening, residents of the Triangle and members of the Carolina Friends School community listened, asked questions, shared stories, and were moved to act during Greg's visit to the school. Mr. Mortenson put his work in the context of the importance of reducing the illiteracy rate, reducing the current infant mortality rate of one of every three babies, limiting the influence of the Taliban in the region, and improving the way the USA helps in the region by listening better to the needs and desires of the people. Mr. Mortenson discussed how raising the literacy rate from its current 5% level in these rural, Islamic areas is an effective way to stop war, terrorism, and poverty.
Mr. Mortenson talked about his work founding schools and educating girls and boys in the most remote regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He then spent over an hour autographing copies of his book Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School a Time and chatted with those who stayed to get books signed.
Mr. Mortenson will be returning to Afghanistan in April and will deliver a package of letters, photos, art, and journals from Carolina Friends School students to their friends in their sister school in Tob Chi.
For more about the new CFS Meeting Hall go to:
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"CFS taught my children the ability to think things out, to find the answers, and independence and freedom of intellect and spirit.
I owe my children’s success and certainly their happiness to CFS."
Parent of three CFS alumni
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