KORPHE:
The seed that grew into a movement.
TWO DECADES ago a movement began at
the base of the Karakorum Mountain range
– peace through education, the mission of
Central Asia Institute. It started in the small
village of Korphe, but quickly spread across
northern Pakistan, over the border into
Afghanistan, and through the mountains to
Tajikistan.
In 2016, Central Asia Institute celebrates its
twentieth anniversary.
Since 1996 when CAI was formally
founded, the organization has brought education to hundreds of thousands of people; built
schools in some of the most daunting locations; dispensed financial aid to promising
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young women; trained midwives in the latest
medical techniques so they could return to
their hometowns to save lives and share their
skills; taught women bookkeeping and vocational skills to help them supplement their
incomes and thus provide for their families;
and offered men and women alternatives to
extremism, violence, and isolation.
And this all began in the little town of
Korphe, Pakistan.
WHERE IT ALL BEGAN
Precariously perched 800 feet above the
Braldu River, the tiny town of Korphe looks
as though it could slip over the sheer cliff at
any moment and plunge into the roiling water
below.
A mere 400 people are estimated to inhabit
this wild place, which lies just 35 miles as the
crow flies from the world’s second highest
mountain, K2.
They have carved a life for themselves out
of the grey rock, funneling glacial meltwater
from the higher peaks to their fields and orchards below. During the harvest season onions, apricots, and wheat grow in abundance,
scenting the air with a pungent, earthy aroma.
But beyond this oasis the terrain is
forbidding.
The only way to effectively reach the town,
the Braldu Valley Road, winds around the
river basin. It is frequently rutted and narrows
unexpectedly around sharp turns. In the summer, the packed earth becomes a quagmire of
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