Olga Murray
Encyclopedia
Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation
The Nepal Youth Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization. The mission of NYF is to provide children in Nepal with education, housing, medical care, and support....
or NYOF.
Career in Law
Born in 1925 in TransylvaniaTransylvania
Transylvania is a historical region in the central part of Romania. Bounded on the east and south by the Carpathian mountain range, historical Transylvania extended in the west to the Apuseni Mountains; however, the term sometimes encompasses not only Transylvania proper, but also the historical...
, Olga Murray came to the U.S. as a six year old. She graduated with honors from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and received her law degree from George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
in 1954. She had worked her way through school by researching and writing for famed muckraking columnist Drew Pearson
Drew Pearson (journalist)
Andrew Russell Pearson , known professionally as Drew Pearson, was one of the best-known American columnists of his day, noted for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," in which he attacked various public persons, sometimes with little or no objective proof for his...
. Although there were very few women lawyers at that time and most law firms would only hire a female lawyer as a secretary, Murray was offered the first job for which she applied - as a staff attorney to the Chief Justice of California, Phil Gibson. When he retired, Murray joined the law staff of the new Justice Stanley Mosk
Stanley Mosk
Stanley Mosk was an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court for 37 years , and holds the record for the longest-serving justice on that court. Before sitting on the Supreme Court, he served as Attorney General of California and as a trial court judge, among other governmental positions...
. She worked for the State Supreme Court until her retirement in 1992. During her 37-year tenure at the Court, Murray helped to write decisions in the areas of civil rights, children’s issues, women's rights, and environmental policy.
Involvement with Nepal
Olga Murray first visited NepalNepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
in 1984. After seeing the terribly impoverished condition of the children in the villages, she resolved that she would return to help them. On another trip in Nepal in 1987, Murray broke her ankle. Upon returning to Kathmandu, she was treated by a young doctor who had just opened a small hospital for poor, very disabled children, where all care was free and of a high standard. Through this connection, she began giving scholarships to disabled children who had no way of getting to school in their villages, and needed to come to Kathmandu for boarding school. As the number of scholarships grew, she decided to start a foundation that would help these kids in an organized way.
The Nepal Youth Foundation
In 1990, she founded the Nepalese Youth Opportunity FoundationNepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation
The Nepal Youth Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit organization. The mission of NYF is to provide children in Nepal with education, housing, medical care, and support....
(NYOF), a nonprofit organization registered in the United States, to provide the most impoverished children of Nepal with education, housing, medical care, and human rights. The organization later changed its name to Nepal Youth Foundation, or NYF. NYF leverages the money from developed countries to maximize the aid for these children. In addition to scholarships for children who live in Kathmandu and rural Nepal, from grammar school to medical school, NYF implements a range of other programs to help Nepali children. For example, NYF’s Indentured Daughters Program rescues girls from being sold as bonded servants and pays for them to attend school. The Nutritional Rehabilitation Homes restore severely malnourished children to full health while educating their mothers in child care and nutrition. NYF also operates two children’s homes in Kathmandu named J House and K House.
Olga Murray still leads the Nepal Youth Foundation, spending half of each year in Nepal overseeing the organization’s projects, and the remainder at her home in Sausalito, California
Sausalito, California
Sausalito is a San Francisco Bay Area city, in Marin County, California, United States. Sausalito is south-southeast of San Rafael, at an elevation of 13 feet . The population was 7,061 as of the 2010 census. The community is situated near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge, and prior to...
, raising funds for NYF’s programs.
Recognition
Olga Murray has been honored with several awards for the Nepal Youth Foundation’s accomplishments. In 2001, the Dalai LamaDalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
gave her the Unsung Heroes of Compassion Award. In 2002, she received a medal from the King of Nepal to honor her work with the children of Nepal. Murray was honored by the World of Children as a 2005 finalist. The Nepal Youth Foundation was a finalist in the 2005 GlobalGiving Marketplace on Borderless Giving. Also in 2005, NYF was awarded the California Association of Nonprofits’ Award of Excellence for its innovative Indentured Daughters Program. In 2006, Murray won the grand prize for the Mannington “Stand on a Better World” Award.
Olga Murray’s achievements with the Nepal Youth Foundation have been featured repeatedly in the media, including appearances on PBS
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
’s NOW program, on ABC World News, and in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
. Additionally, Murray and NYF were profiled on “The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show
The Oprah Winfrey Show is an American syndicated talk show hosted and produced by its namesake Oprah Winfrey. It ran nationally for 25 seasons beginning in 1986, before concluding in 2011. It is the highest-rated talk show in American television history....
” on May 9, 2002. This special “Children of the World” program also featured Nelson Mandela
Nelson Mandela
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...
. This program focused on NYF’s Indentured Daughters Program, which uses a piglet to rescue a girl from bonded servitude.