Greg Mortenson gets lost while descending Pakistan's K2. He comes across a village on the foothills. The village chief decides to take him in, as he was lost and exhausted. During his stay in the village he notices that there were no schools. In order to repay the village he promises to build a school for the village. Mortenson takes the help of Jean Hoerni to fund his school. Jean Hoerni later went on to co-find the CAI(Central Asia Institute). They have a task of building schools in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mortenson eventually builds 55 schools in the Taliban area but it was not easy. In his quest he met with a lot of resistance from exremists and Taliban sympathizers. Mortenson feels that by increasing literacy in the region extremism can be effectively combated. Moreever by educating girls the community gains more as girls contribute more to education in the society.
