The Story of Olga Murray and the Nepal Youth Foundation

Hands-On Life-Saving

In 1996, on a visit to Kanti Children's Hospital in Kathmandu, Olga Murray discovered a five-year-old girl who was hospitalized with a severe lung infection caused by malnourishment. Her infection was cured, but she was discharged even though she had gained only 8 ounces of weight and could not stand or walk. The hospital needed the bed for acutely ill children. As we discovered, it wasn't uncommon for children to be discharged as soon as their infections were under control, even though they were still pathetically undernourished.

In 1998, we launched the first Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH) with the recommendation and cooperation of a prominent pediatrician in the only general children's hospital in the country. The NRH provides hands-on life-saving services that restore the child's health and educates the mother in nutritious food preparation and child care. The NRH program is extraordinarily effective. It is located close to a major general hospital in the Kathmandu area. It has a big vegetable garden and plenty of space where mothers can learn about nutrition and newly-strong children can learn how to play at our playground.

Not long after we first established the NRH, Som Paneru, NYF's Executive Director in Kathmandu, became aware of another desperate situation where we simply had to see if we could help. In the rural Western Nepal, young girls are sold into bonded servitude by their impoverished families. Typical of NYF, we were able to mobilize immediately. Led by a volunteer from the area, we made an exploratory visit. We worked closely with villagers to develop an innovative, effective means of preventing the practice of selling daughters. This Indentured Daughters Program was so successful that it quadrupled in size from the first year to the next, and since then we have saved more than 11,000 girls. Instead of being sold away, thousands girls now remain with their families, receive a piglet or goat, and are going to school.

When NYF was profiled on "The Oprah Show" in May 2002, thousands of donors offered support for this project as well as NYF's other lifesaving programs. That support enabled us to take on more girls. But many more need our help. We are working with these girls and their communities for the long haul. NYF is close to our goal of ending the tradition of bonding girls in Nepal.

In the decades we have been working with children in Nepal, NYF has expanded not only in the number of children supported (from five to thousands), but also in the ways in which we help them. What has not changed is the intense sense of satisfaction and joy we get from our relationship with these lively and loving kids, and the admiration we feel at their courage and joy in overcoming the dreadful experiences of their early lives. With your help, we can continue to transform the lives of some of the most destitute children on Earth.

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