By John Molene

Eden Prairie Reads participants wrapped up the 2009 season with a peek into the past, present and perhaps future of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

About 70 readers and fans of this year’s selection, “Three Cups of
Tea,” gathered April 9 in the Eden Prairie Library to hear a panel discussion on Pakistan and Afghanistan. The discussion was led by four presenters, three of whom were born in Pakistan and a fourth who has worked extensively in Afghanistan. Speakers Yusuf Wazirzada and Shehla Mushtaq both grew up in Pakistan, while Ruth Aldrich worked with refugees in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The answers from the fourth presenter – Sumayya Hashmi, an Eden Prairie High School student from Pakistan – drew particular attention as she related her experiences with the educational systems both in her home country and in Eden Prairie.

Her firsthand knowledge of both Pakistani and Eden Prairie schools led her to great respect for the work being done by “Three Cups of Tea” author Greg Mortenson in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“What I remember is how passionate Greg Mortenson was to spread education, especially among females,” Hashmi said. “He wanted to do what was right. To me, that was a very good deal.”

Those answers resonated with the audience, most of whom were well familiar with this year’s Eden Prairie Reads choice, the runaway best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” and sympathetic to its mission of improving education in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan, especially the education of girls.

Just 13 percent of women living in Afghanistan are literate, Wazirzada explained, and even that figure may be high. The adult literacy rate for Afghanistan is officially 28 percent overall and at 50 percent overall percent for Pakistan.

“You have to take those [figures] with a grain of salt,” Wazirzada said. “It could be much less.”

“The literacy rate for urban women is more than five times that of rural women,” noted Shehla Mushtaq, a native of Pakistan who had lived in Minnesota for the last 20 years and is a vice president of software engineering for an international firm.

Those literacy rates will take mighty efforts to improve, but the 78 schools started by Mortenson, and hundreds of other recent start-up schools, are a step in the right direction, all of the panelists agreed.

Poverty, a traditional and conservative culture, combined with strict religious and cultural beliefs hold back educational progress in many areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mushtaq said.
But there are reasons to hope. School enrollment in Afghanistan has increased from 80,000 during the Taliban regime to 4.2 million, Wazirzada said.

“The solution really is education,” he emphasized. “Before you start building the first building you have to get the community involved, and Greg is pretty good at that.”

Audience members listened attentively as the panel members described their experiences growing up or working in Pakistan and Afghanistan and their responses to questions related to the book.

Literacy is just one of a host of problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, in rural and tribal dominated Afghanistan especially, jobs are scarce and an infrastructure only just developing. More than half (53 percent) of Afghans live below the poverty line, while a quarter of Pakistanis do.

“Technology is rapidly expanding in Pakistan,” noted Hashmi, who was born in Karachi, Pakistan, and now hopes to become a teacher, either in this country or in Pakistan. She was at first home-schooled and then attended a public girls school in Pakistan for two years before moving to the United States in 2001. She started in Eden Prairie Schools as a fifth-grader and is now a senior at Eden Prairie High School.

On a recent visit back to Pakistan, Hashmi returned to her old public school, and somewhat to her surprise, she was warmly welcomed and encouraged to return one day as a teacher.

That’s how systems are changed, one student, one teacher, at a time, the panelists agreed.

“At a minimum, it gives a child an education,” Wazirzada said. “... I think what he’s [Mortenson] doing has a huge impact.”

“Think about what our own education does,” said panelist Ruth Aldrich. “It’s an influence to the next generation. And it does push [progress] forward.”

“It snowballs,” Wazirzada added.

And that’s the whole point of “Three Cups of Tea.” Service to others, leading by example, taking small steps and letting them snowball.

For more information about Eden Prairie Reads activities, visit www.epreads.org.