Retired Lawyer Supports, Nurtures Nepal's Children

By Jane Morse

California attorney Olga Murray, now 82 years old, seems to have found her true vocation in the last years of her legal career.

A 1984 visit to the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Nepal made a lasting - and life-changing - impression on Murray.

"I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the landscape and the exotic surroundings, but most of all by the children I encountered there. They were poor beyond anything I had experienced before ... but with an amazing capacity for joy," she wrote friends.

She resolved she would improve their lives and she did. She returned to Nepal each year to make friends and useful contacts and to establish small programs to help poor Nepalese children.

In 1990, two years before she retired from her 37-year career as a lawyer with the California Supreme Court, she founded the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF), a nonprofit, nongovernmental organization of which she is still the president.

Under her leadership, NYOF has helped thousands of children get medical care, good nutrition and educations. NYOF also has helped thousands more escape life in the streets and indentured servitude.

Murray spends six months of each year working in Nepal.

HELPING NEPALESE HELP THEMSELVES

NYOF, which has offices in Sausalito, California, and Kathmandu, Nepal's capital, works with Nepal's Friends of Needy Children as well as local Nepalese organizations. Less than 25 percent of NYOF's funding - a $1.6 million budget in 2008 - comes from foundations with the remainder from individual donors.

"Not one rupee [the currency of Nepal] changes hands between us and the beneficiaries," Murray told America.gov. Instead, funds pay for children's education, hospital stays and nutrition programs, for animals families can use to earn livelihoods; and for kerosene lamps and kerosene to shed light for children's studies. There is no electricity in many remote areas of Nepal.

NYOF has just one full-time and three part-time staff members in California and six in Nepal, Murray said. And, even though Murray's passionate commitment has been the heart of NYOF, she credits Som Paneru, NYOF executive director in Kathmandu, and his "brilliant staff" for the growth and success of NYOF's innovative programs.

NEPAL'S PEOPLE INSPIRE ENTHUSIASM

After nearly 25 years of working in Nepal, Murray remains undeterred by the persistent poverty.

"Nepali children are wonderful," Murray told America.gov. "I retain an unflagging devotion to the welfare of children in Nepal. While I often see things there - as well as in our own country - that makes me sad, the fact that we can help so many children in such important ways keeps my spirits up."

"I want to put myself out of business," she said. "I think the biggest change I would like to see is for the education system to be improved .... Nepalese are smart and they're enterprising and they're willing to learn; and I think if the education system is improved, Nepal can really improve a lot."

Murray said Nepal's extensive water resources could be harnessed to generate power and give its people a basis for a thriving information technology sector. "There are quite a few Nepali computer engineers studying in this country and working in the United States," she said.

Even so, illiteracy is widespread, especially among women. Only an estimated 42 percent of Nepali girls are able to read or write, and most marry by the time they are 16 or 17 years old. That is why Murray focuses on that segment of Nepal's population of 30 million.

"About 80 percent of the recipients of our scholarships are girls, because you get more 'bang for the buck' - they spend the money [they earn] on the family, they educate their own daughters," Murray explained.

ADVICE TO SENIORS: "DO IT"

Murray said she is confident NYOF would remain strong without her leadership, but added she has no plans to retire from her second career any time soon.

Her family originally thought her plans for working in Nepal were "a bit wild," she acknowledged, but they have adjusted. "Over these many years, they have become reconciled to my dedication to the country and admire what we have been able to accomplish." One of Murray's two grandsons worked with her in Nepal for eight months between college and law school.

What is Murray's advice to other seniors considering similar "wild" ideas for their retirements?

"Do it," she told America.gov. "Find the culture and country you feel passionate about and you will find many ways to help. The last 25 years of my life have been the happiest because of my work with Nepali children. And I am sure anyone - young or old - would be enriched by the experience of helping people in another country."

Source: U.S. Department of State

judythpiazza@newsblaze.com

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