My religion requires me to to follow the Lord's statement " whatever you do to the least of my children you do to me". So I have given what I can afford and will continue to do so for the rest of my life. We may not be all the same religion but we are all God's children.
Harold McArdle
I learned of NYF in 2001 from an old Army buddy who knew Olga Murray personally. I had just received my 2001 tax "rebate" and was trying to figure out how to use it wisely. I learned that for a mere $100 I could not only save a little girl from virtual slavery, but also provide her with a year's worth of education as well as all of her school supplies . . . an absolutely unimaginable bargain! Because it gives the "biggest bang for the buck" of any charity I have ever known, NYF has been my charity of choice ever since.
I like to imagine that someday in the future, the birthday of the extraordinarily wise, kind, and generous-spirited Olga Murray will be a national holiday in Nepal!
I have been a donor to NYF through the years. I have been touched by the stories of the children NYF has helped. Whatever challenge NYF faces, it has been able to overcome because of the love the founders have for the children. Now many of the children helped by NYF have a role in continuing its work. I am gratified that my small donations through the years have resulted in real and lasting improvement in the lives of Nepal's children.
I have been involved with NYF since the late 1980's. It has been my privilege to play a small part in their very fine work. I have been consistently amazed at how effectively they have been able to use their resources and the number of lives they have touched.
My name is Majita. I was born into a kamaiya family who are bonded labors and therefore, I was also sold as a bonded servant when I was nine years old. My life was very miserable. I was a small girl but I had to do a lot of hard work and also suffer a lot of abuse. Luckily In 2002 Nepal Youth Foundation freed me and gave me education. I was one of the first group of girls rescued. NYF also gave me leadership and advocacy training because of which I was able to lead the anti bonding campaign aggressively and fight for the rights of the rescued girls. NYF also helped us to establish cooperatives from which many freed girls and their families have started income generating businesses. It also helped us to form our own organization to fight for our cause and empowered us to do so. It is because of NYF that the Kamlari system is finally ended in Nepal and more than twelve thousand girls are now free. NYF is truely our loving guardian and I am grateful to NYF for giving a new life to me as well as thousands of girls like me.
Nepal Youth foundation has already helped over 45,000 Nepalese children so far by providing them freedom, health, education and shelter. The commitment of Nepal youth Foundation to these children are long term with personal care and support. By working at the grassroots as well as lobbying with the government of Nepal, NYF has been able to bring policy changes in issues, for instance, after 13 years of tireless effort, it was successful to rescue more than twelve thousand girls from bonded servitude and have the government abolish the Kamlari system (bonded child slavery) from the country. Similarly NYF was able to persuade the government to work in partnership in its fight against malnutrition in the country, and it has already restored thousands of severely malnourished children to health.
I have been involved with this organization for over 3 years and have found its vision and work to be truly inspiring, identifying and dealing with most pertinent issues which have been ignored by the society at large. This organization definitely deserves to win this opportunity so that it is enabled to reach out to thousands of more children who are still living in desperate conditions across Nepal.
Nepal Youth Foundation is only the organization in Nepal that has been helping Nepali children by diverse aspects. Food, shelter and care for homeless/ parent less children, good education for them who do not have access to schools, protection for them who are serving as a bonded labour, health services for them who are fighting against malnutrition and HIV and AIDS and chaning the lives of needy youth and children. I am seeing everyday the children who come restless, lean, poor have been turning to healthy, nourished and having full of joy.
Thanks Olga and the team of Nepal youth foundation!
I am presently a volunteer at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Home (NRH) in Kathmandu, and having heard of Olga's story and being a part of the general work of the Nepal Youth Foundation is simply amazing. The work that is being done at the NRH in Kathmandu is indeed life-changing for so many of the children and families that are helped, treated and educated at the home. I have had an incredible experience watching and being a part of their amazingly helpful work, and I would recommend anyone to support an organisation like NYF, who are so efficient and caring in their work.
I am very thankful to Olga who has started to support and giving good education, health, food and home to helpless children in our country Nepal. Nepal Youth Foundation is doing great work in Nepal.
NYF has rescued over 12,000 bonded girls via a unique program of offering the families a goat to raise if they promise not to sell their children as indentured servants. Ive been supporting this charity for years and have found them to be absolutely visionary in their work. This unique charity has worked with local grassroots organizations to educate local villages - for example via acting troupes composed of former indentured girls to help educate families about the horrors that befall these children. As a result, the practice has been officially outlawed and is now considered unethical, where it was once accepted as the norm in parts of rural Nepal.
NYF is by far the most outstanding non-profit organization that I am aware of. It has the highest rating from Charity Navigator due to the efficient use of all monies received. I just returned from Nepal and visited J and K house where children are wonderfully cared for in all ways. They are educated, loved and each child has individual needs met. Olga Murray, the founder is a true inspiration to me for her strategic planning skills, love and passion for all the children she helps in Nepal along with being creative in her ability to identify and develop an effective plan to help more children with different needs.
I was fortunate to work with the dedicated stuff who truely care about wellness of children in Nepal. I had volunteered many organizations before, but the determination and dedication of NYF's stuff far exceeded my expectation. Knowing that a little help can go a long way and all the funds collected are used efficiently changed my perception about giving.
Nepal Youth Foundation has transformed the lives of thousands of boys and girls by providing healthcare, education and shelter to some of the most impoverished children in Nepal. Having travelled to the country myself, I have seen first-hand the poor living conditions experienced by some Nepalese. Through my association as a volunteer with NYF I've learned of the many life-changing programs they've put in place over the last 20+ years to improve the lives of women and children. The organization is well-run, administratively lean and very effective at deploying its limited resources to create lasting change in Nepal.
The Nepal Youth Foundation in its 22 years has accomplished life-changing transformations n the lives of tens of thousands of impoverished children in one of the most impoverished countries in the world. It has provided scholarships, health care, and freedrom from bonded labor to many thousands of youngsters. One of its most important projects is the Nutritional Rehabilitation Homes, l6 small hospitals scattered throughout the country which has restored the health of 10,000 malnourished children and educated their mothers so that the condition does not recur. It has rescued 12,000 children from bonded labor as kitchen slaves, brought them home to live with their mothers, and placed them in school through high school. Equally important, through its dynamic awareness program, it has been successful in almost eradicating the inhumane custom of indentured servitude of children in the Tharu communities of west Nepal, where the practice was prevalent. It has done this with minimal administrative cost and maximum attention to the needs of the wonderful children of Nepal.
Olga Murray and Som Paneru are truly inspiring people and leaders of this wonderful organization. They have given so much to Nepal and its children that I am both humbled and honored to be associated with them. Charities do not have to be big or bureacratic to have a meaningful impact, and the Nepal Youth Foundation is the perfect example: little overhead and lots of focus on helping disadvantaged children and their familes - all in concert with local communities and with help effectively negotiated from the country's government. Bravo!
I have been a supporter of NYF for over 5 years, a Board member for three years and Chairman of the Board for the past year. I have seen the organization mature from a founder lead not-for-profit, to a well-managed, results focused organization with clear reporting lines and a structure which allows for efficient and effective execution of high impact programs in Nepal. NYF’s mission is clear, its leadership team is exceptional and its impact on the lives of thousands of children in Nepal is life changing. The low overhead, high impact strategy focused on Nepali youth and the eradication of exploitive local customs, has been successful in touching and improving the lives of thousands. NYF is proud to have the highest rating possible from Charity Navigator, and is structured to support its long term commitment to Nepali Youth under the outstanding stewardship of its President Som Paneru, and the inspiration of its wonderful Founder, Olga Murray.
Olga's story is amazing -- dedicating her life to helping free, educate and bring children back to health -- but it is the story of the many thousands of Nepali children that NYF has helped that is truly fantastic. Starting with helping to send the current President of NYF, Som Paneru to school when he was young to rescuing young girls from being sold as slaves and providing them with an education, to teaching young mothers how to feed their children to stave off severe malnutrition. NYF not only takes on great projects where there is a huge need and it can make a huge impact, Som has figured out how to leverage the impact of this small organization by getting others to follow its path and to get the government to support and take over some of it successful programs. It is not just putting a program in place, but getting culture to change. Now, girls in Nepal protest against the Kamlari practice themselves. The government is providing funding and taking over the successful nutritional rehabilitation centers. Being from Silicon Valley, I really appreciate the vision that NYF leadership has in seeing problems, coming up with solutions that not only help, but bring additional outside resources to address the problems. It is a FANTASTIC group.
I interviewed founder, Olga Murray last year for a project about happiness. Olga is one of the most wonderful, sincere, absolutely dedicated individuals I have ever met. The work at Nepalese Youth Foundation is literally changing Nepal. Olga started this dream from her own pocketbook and has laid the foundation for an organization whose funding goes straight to supporting the people. I plan to visit Nepal next year to have the opportunity to see the incredible power of their work. I encourage anyone to support this organization!
I am a past chairman of the board of this wonderful organization, so I am deeply invested in its mission and success. That said, the reasons I have devoted 13 years of my life to the Nepal Youth Foundation as a volunteer and board member are the excellence and effectiveness, including cost effectiveness, of its programs and the remarkable transformations they effect in the lives of these beautiful and deserving children.
i feel so proud to be a part of NYF since last 18 years. I have witnessed the transformation of thousands of lives in Nepal with the direct help from NYF.
One need only look at before and after photographs of Nepali children who have benefitted from NYF's nutritional rehabilitation homes to see that this is an outstanding--and effectual--nonprofit. Olga Murray, the organization's warm and compassionate founder, spends half of her time in Nepal with the children that NYF aims to help, allowing her to see firsthand what needs to be done to improve their lives. There is no more worthy cause I could imagine donating my time or money to.
Olga Murray has improved the lives of tens of thousands of Nepali children. For the last 20 years, she has donated her time and her own money, never taking a dime from donations. Olga has established nutritional rehabilitation homes, a home for orphans and has made huge strides in eliminating child slavery. This charity is the real deal.
Grass root charity working to relief the root of the problem and eradicating bonded labour practises for example from within. And working itself out of business - what better way. Understanding the local culture and customs gives NYF an edge over any iNGO trying to better the country and its issues. Working with the communities and maintaining the relationships, using these to build on again, is crucial and the people NYF has in place from the most rural towns to the heart of Kathmandu, all understand the ethics of the organising and why we do what we do. Truly helping Nepal's future, one child at the time.
NYF is a truly effective charity. I have visited their programs in Nepal and I saw the impact they make. They're also careful to use donations as efficiently as possible.
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NYOF is an excellent organization. They're making a huge difference in the lives of thousands of children in Nepal by providing them with health care, education, and human rights. Because of the low cost of living in Nepal, and because NYOF implements their funds so efficiently, they're able to make profound impacts on children's lives for very little money.
This small to medium nonprofit is affecting social change in a big way! Just look at their Indentured Daughters Program. Over 11,000 girls saved from slavery with their innovative program. Not only that, but they have virtually stopped the practice of families selling their daughters into slavery. And the rescued girls are then given an education or vocational training. Nepal Youth Foundation has helped the girls organize and now they have formed their own co-operative; performing educational plays to prevent the practice from resurfacing, keeping an eye out for trafficked girls now that the practice has gone mostly underground and giving out micro loans to help their members start small businesses. Another innovative program is the Nutritional Rehabilition Homes which restore severely malnourished children to good health while educating their mothers about nutrition and child care. When mother and child return to their village, the mother shares her new knowledge with her family and neighbors. These homes are started & supported by NYF for the first five years and then gradually government funding takes over. And these are just two of many successful programs supported by NYF, such as J & K House (for children that have no families or their families can not support them, The New Life HIV/Aids Center, and their many educational programs. We personally donated to build a classroom to help support all the Indentured Daughters that were now returning to school and a dormitory to help girls remain in school when they had to walk 3miles to and 3 miles from school each day. We visited both these projects and our expectations were far exceeded.
Since years I'm a donor and great supporter of the NYF. The work NYF and its staff, here and in Nepal, does is very inspiring. They are set up very efficiently and have set up processes that maximize our donor contribution. Every quarter we get updates via email from Olga, the founder, a newsletter to keep us appraised of their projects, successes and challenges. I love this organization and will continue to contribute for many more years.
I met the founder, Olga, fifteen years ago. Please read her story, as she told it to me and you'll understand why NOF should be noticed. Ogla is 87, and she spends half her year in Sausalito, California and the other half in Kathmandu where she works to buy girls out of bondage in a rural farming district in southern Nepal. Poverty forces families to sell their daughters, as young as 7 years old, as domestic slaves or worse.
Olga told me her story: On her first trip to Asia in 1984, she found herself captivated by the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. “I got off the plane in Kathmandu and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the land, the exotic surroundings, but most of all by the children. They were poor beyond anything I had ever experienced – dressed in rags and dirt, malnourished, mostly unschooled, but with an amazing capacity for joy. I thought that for the price of a good haircut, I could make a huge difference in their lives.’” So she returned to the USA determined, somehow, to do just that.
By raiding her own savings, and securing donations from friends, she returned to Kathmandu with the wherewithal to establish a home for the country’s throwaway children – street urchins, handicapped kids, orphans, or children who had been abandoned - often by parents too poor to feed them.
She learned about the practice of child slavery years ago and since then has worked tirelessly to find a solution. Nepal Youth Foundation pays parents to keep their daughters at home and in school. However, in lieu of cash, her foundation, Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF.org) offers families a piglet, which they can raise on kitchen scraps and sell, ultimately receiving about as much as they would from their daughter’s labor. Girls receive a school uniform, notebooks, pencils, a school bag, a daily snack at school, and most importantly, an education.
“What began as a pilot project with 37 families now includes 2,500 girls,” she marveled.
“I realized that education is the best way to ensure a better life for these children,” Olga says, knowing this would become the cornerstone of her work. Over the last 16 years, not only has the number of supported children expanded (to 3,000 plus), but so have the ways in which they are helped. In addition to scholarships, NYOF funds the salaries of more than 65 teachers in various poor rural areas of Nepal, and teacher training in a country where teachers are not trained. Her foundation also runs two boarding schools and nutritional programs in Kathmandu.
Olga was an attorney who worked for 37 years helping write opinions for two California Supreme Court chief justices in San Francisco. Today she crisscrosses the globe to help children.
I think that NYF is a wonderful organization. I have met personally with Teresa, the director of development and communications, and discussed at length their work and vision. The work that they do is purely life-changing, and NYF's staff is devoted to making a difference. Education, healthcare, and shelter? These are humanity's most basic needs, and NYF provides them. Also worth noting -- they are responsible and transparent with their donations. They haven't earned six consecutive 4-star ratings from Charity Navigator for nothing! I support everything NYF does and think they absolutely deserve this recognition.
The Nepal Youth Foundation assists the most vulnerable children, especially girls from destitute rural communities, have a chance at a better life by getting proper nutrition and an education. Nepal is a very poor country with a patriarchal society that tends to discourage schooling for girls- therefore, girls may be "sold" into indentured servitude to provide money for their families. The Nepal Youth Foundation has rescued thousands of girls by gifting their parents with a baby goat or pig, and helping with school fees. Malnourished children are saved by teaching proper nutrition techniques to their mothers. All this is done in a culturally sensitive manner for a more lasting success.
As a teacher, it is my belief that the way to improve the future for our children is through education. NYOF offers that possibility. The simple task of donating $100 can change a child's life improving it forever. What a gift. I only wish there was more I can do besides spreading the word for this wonderful organization.
I have worked in the nonprofit sector for nearly three decades and am familiar with hundreds of nonprofits in the Bay Area and internationally. NYOF is my personal favorite. I just returned from Nepal where I had the joy of visiting J and K Houses--two homes for orphans run by Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation. I also visiting one of the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centers, a temporary home for women and their malnourished or starving children. I have been a NYOF donor for nearly ten years but seeing the work firsthand was absolutely catalyzing. Everything NYOF does is done spectacularly well. The programs are effective and cost efficient as well as culturally appropriate. The children in their care are a delight. The individuals who work in Nepal for the agency are dedicated, talented and professional. I came home from Nepal more committed than ever to the agency and look forward to sharing as much with them in the coming years as I possibly can.
I met Olga in Bali in 1985. She was on her way to Kathmandu to see how the little boy she had helped the yeay before was doing. ONE little boy. In 1989 I went to Kathmandu and went with her to visit the first orphanage she was helping. The improvements Olga had provided to the orphanage were spectacular and all the children adore Didi Olga. That is how it all began. What Olga has achieved since then is fabulous. Do not hesitate to help the NYOF!
