We don’t take donations and we rely on our students to set the direction and earn the costs.
DAVIS, CA, US: I’m the founder of a system of schools — Little World Community Organisation — in Pakistan, that is quite different from the CAI model of Greg Mortenson. We don’t take donations and we rely on our students to set the direction and earn the costs, which are quite low. It is a simple grassroots all-volunteer organisation with 30 schools and approximately 4,000 students, mostly women. Families are proud of their hard work of bringing prosperity to their future generations. They earn around five dollars making embroidered greeting cards and this can pay tuition fees for one year for one student.
My problem with the CAI model is that it is top-down and money-driven. What is the value of pumping million-dollar, western-style education into village cultures? They must learn how to solve their own complex problems and work their own way out, gaining strength as they go. The millions of dollars from the outside smother what must come from the inside.
Greg Zaller
Published in The Express Tribune, April 20th, 2011.
