The Big Read Project Takes Place for our Community’s Well-Being
By Nikhil Krishnan
A man named Greg Mortenson climbs the K2 mountain of Pakistan, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakorum Range, to honor his sister’s memory. While coming back and staying at a village called Korphe for a while, he sees a group of underprivileged girls trying to write with sticks on sand. He walks up to them, and promises to build them a school. As of 2009, Greg Mortenson has built 131 schools. His incentive of establishing peace by ‘books and not by bombs’, has awarded him several honors including a nomination for the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
The Big Read project at Schutz American School is strongly inspired by the story of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Three Cups of Tea, written by Greg Mortenson. Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea is an inspirational autobiographical account of how Mortenson successfully established a number of schools in the remote communities and areas of Central Asia and how he is changing the state of the world one school at a time
The Big Read project similarly aims to assist in providing needed resources and build libraries for three underprivileged schools in the neighborhood of Alexandria. For a kickoff start, the Big Read project contributors and members introduced the long-term project at an Upper School Falcon Block assembly held on November 19, 2009. The two upper school Language Arts teachers, Ms. Randa Shoeb and Ms. Jean Melek have been encouraging their students to read Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea for exciting rewards, such as opportunities for earning bonus points in their Language Arts classes, occasional tea-parties and pizza offering at book discussions during lunch times. Since then, there have been several successful book discussions during lunch times.
On the other hand, many fundraising activities and events have been held at Schutz such as the National Honor Society’s Big Read Bake Sale, Upper School library’s Book Donation and Sale etc. All raised funds and money are being donated to the Central Asia Institute (CAI), the organization that is co-founded by Greg Mortenson and that builds schools in the remote mountainous areas of northern Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan and the steppes of Mongolia.
Greg Mortenson with the Central Asia Institute has effectively enlightened and motivated the world with one of the most staggering humanitarian campaigns ever, and the Big Read Project is certainly one result. We are proud of Ms. Melek and Co. for establishing Schutz’s Big Read Project and hope that it successfully serves its community to make it healthier than ever.
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