GlobalGiving.org: Send Deserving Children to school in Rural Nepal

The Gift of Books and a Schoolroom

Teresa Parker — Wed, 25 May 2011 20:36:27 GMT

Young Student Learning to Write

Often, for children in the developed countries of the world, going to school is so much a certainty and a guaranteed opportunity that many of them look upon their education with disdain. Bored with their studies and distracted by their electronic toys -- while living lives of fantastic abundance without knowing it -- these "first-world" children have little or no understanding of what it is to crave an education.

However, the children of Nepal live with this craving. These children know that they will only be able to improve conditions for themselves and their families if they can learn to read and write, learn the fundamentals of mathematics and science, and learn something of history and culture. And to go to school is a supreme privilege that more than 30% of them will never get. The children who do get this privilege often start toward school before dawn and get home after dark. Walking, literally, for hours on undeveloped tracks and footpaths, they arrive at crowded schoolhouses in distant villages with the hope of learning the information and gaining the tools that will free them and their families from ignorance and poverty.

In regions where few roads connect the towns and families have lived for generations farming small plots of land, children have historically gone to work in the fields with their parents as soon as they could walk. For these children in the remote, mountainous regions of Nepal, the promise of education, a few books and a crowded schoolroom are priceless gifts. And, these gifts are, at the very least, what the Nepal Youth Foundation's Village Scholarship Program ensures they get.

For approximately $100 a year, NYF provides books, paper and pencils, school uniforms, and the school fee. As nominal as that possibly sounds to someone in the West, this sum is beyond the means of many parents in rural Nepal. Through these modest investments, NYF's donors are giving more than hope and education. They are providing the opportunity to change an entire culture one deserving student at a time.

To read more about Nepal Youth Foundation's Village Scholarship Program and our other projects in Nepal, please visit our website, www.nepalyouthfoundation.org

Students in Rural Classroom

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Nepal Youth Foundation

NYF now rescues children with HIV/AIDS!

Olga Murray — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:26:49 GMT

Your $75 donation can send them to school

Dear Friends,

The Nepal Youth Foundation has started to rescue children with HIV/AIDS!
The New Life Center in Kathmandu, Nepal provides excellent treatment to children with HIV/AIDS while teaching their parents to live hygienically and cook nutritious meals. This training dramatically reduces the risk of acquiring the illnesses that make HIV develop into AIDS, and lets HIV-infected people lead fulfilling lives. Find out more about this pioneering project!
http://www.nepalyouthfoundation.org/programs/health/newlife.html

NYF's founder Olga Murray describes falling in love with Nepal
She also discusses NYF’s diverse programs for children and the organization's plans for the future, in an interview in the Napa Valley Register.
http://bit.ly/8XzPn6

Read an interview about NYF's life-changing projects!
Read an interview with the Nepal Youth Foundation's Development Director, Gregg Tully, about NYF's work to end child slavery in Nepal, scholarships, and children's homes. Also watch a video in which a blind Nepali girl describes the happiest moment in her life.
http://bit.ly/9Fihbt

NYF earns its fourth consecutive four-star rating
Because of our exceptional fiscal management, the Nepal Youth Foundation received its fourth four-star rating – the highest possible – from Charity Navigator, America's largest evaluator of charities. Only 8% of the charities evaluated receive four consecutive four-star ratings. This indicates our extremely efficient and effective implementation of the funds that you, our donors, contribute.

A hair salon held a fundraiser to rescue enslaved Nepali girls!
Salon Amour in Walnut Creek, California donated 100% of their proceeds for a day to NYF, and raised $5,000 – enough to rescue 50 girls! Find out more about how they did it at http://www.callandresponse.com/blog/?p=753. Can you hold a fundraiser, too? Read about many creative and fun ways you can help NYF rescue needy children:
http://www.nepalyouthfoundation.org/howtohelp/supporters.html

Please donate today to enable the Nepal Youth Foundation to give unimagined opportunities to some of the most destitute children on earth. It only costs $100 to rescue a girl from bonded servitude and let her get an education.

Rescued from malnutrition for just $340

Disabled children are happy to get an education!

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Celebrating 20 Years of Transforming Children’s Lives in Nepal!

Olga Murray — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 23:07:25 GMT

A girl NYOF rescued from a childhood of servitude

Dear Friends,

The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF) uses an integrated approach to address the multitude of challenges facing Nepali children and empowers them to fulfill their dreams. To learn more about how NYOF’s diverse programs provide education in rural villages, nutrition, loving homes, and much more, visit http://www.NYOF.org .

Olga Murray, who founded the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF) 20 years ago, just turned 85. We celebrated this combined anniversary and birthday in San Francisco with around 200 of Olga and NYOF’s friends and supporters.

Watch ABC TV's VIDEO about NYOF’s work in Nepal and Olga's party! The video shows the results of the decades NYOF and Olga have spent helping Nepali Children, including rescuing girls who have been enslaved as bonded servants. http://nyof.org/newsroom/video.html#abc2

NYOF has rescued close to 10,000 girls from slave-like servitude, and more than 3,500 have been saved in the current year alone. NYOF will soon eliminate the tradition of selling Nepali girls into bondage. Read this news article about our accomplishments: http://nyof.org/newsroom/newsmedia.html#irin

"Happy Birthday Olga Mummy!" Watch this adorable VIDEO of the children of J and K House, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation's excellent homes for children, sending Olga Murray birthday greetings. http://nyof.org/newsroom/video.html#birthday

These children can go to school because of NYOF

Now she is free from slavery and goes to school

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Update on NYOF's work with children in Nepal!

Olga Murray — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:05:51 GMT

A girl in rural Nepal who is supported by NYOF

Read Olga's latest email from Nepal, about a trip to the jungle! In her May 2010 email, NYOF's founder Olga Murray describes the fun of bringing the younger kids NYOF supports on a safari in the jungle! She also writes about how the older kids nurture and look after the younger ones, and a very unique alarm clock. http://nyof.org/emails/2010-05-04_chitwan.html

Take a look at an excellent new interview with Olga Murray about what inspired her to help Nepali children, how it led to founding NYOF, and what motivates her to continue this life-changing work! http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=17850

Read about Manoj, a young boy from a deeply troubled family who was recently supported by NYOF, and the warm welcome he received from the other children. You can also watch a video in which Olga describes NYOF's projects to transform the lives of impoverished Nepali youth. http://nyof.org/emails/2010-02_olgavideo.html

A schoolteacher in a classroom funded by NYOF

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NYOF Plans to Eliminate Child Slavery from Nepal

Olga Murray — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:23:19 GMT

These girls are free from slavery and in school, thanks to NYOF

Dear Friends,

This is going to be an exciting year for the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation. Next month, our staff will fan out over the five districts in west Nepal where girls are enslaved as bonded laborers to carry out our dynamic awareness program against the bonding custom. We will have a new weapon in our arsenal this year in addition to the piglet or goat we give the parents as incentives – the new government program to pay for the education or vocational training of all the girls we rescue. This is the culmination of a decade of lobbying the government by NYOF! We will emphasize to reluctant parents that their daughters will be eligible for a fully funded education by the government if they will consent to bring them home from their labors. Our plan is to rescue thousands of girls who have been or are about to be sold. Within a few years, we plan to completely eliminate the horrible tradition of selling Nepali girls into bondage. Those of you who have contributed to this cause have our eternal gratitude.

We still need your generous support to liberate the bonded girls and conduct our awareness campaign, because the government funding will not be used for these purposes.

We are deeply grateful for the contributions you have made. Please give as generously as you can, so that we can continue to help kids in Nepal to uncover and develop their full potential. We have a proven track record in making the most of your donations – you can do more good with a dollar in Nepal than almost anywhere else, and we spend a very small percentage of donations on administration (as evidenced by our four-star rating from Charity Navigator). We hope you will help us in our efforts to make a difference in these children’s lives.

Please let us know your thoughts by providing feedback in our comments section! Also, please tell your friends, family and colleagues about NYOF’s accomplishments!

Warm regards, Olga

Olga with one of the girls at K House, NYOF’s home for the needy

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Learn more about the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation

NYOF gives impoverished children in Nepal many ways to unleash their potential!

Olga Murray — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:56:39 GMT

Learning how to sew as well as how to support herself

We are deeply proud of the successes and accomplishments of the many students in our programs. Take, for example, the girls in rural Nepal who we have liberated from bonded labor at the age of 16 or 17 and who have never been to school. It would be too uncomfortable for them to be in a class with first and second graders, so we place them in an intensive literacy course for nine months and then train them for a job – preferably one which will allow them to start a business of their own.

Early on, we created a sewing program for these older girls. The success of this program is guaranteed because they make school uniforms for the thousands of girls we have liberated and now support in school. (The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (NYOF) pays the education expenses of former bonded girls, including two sets of school uniforms a year.) So there is no shortage of work for them. Better still, many of the girls we have trained have left the program and started their own sewing businesses in nearby villages.

We have also trained formerly indentured girls to run small shops, repair bicycles, etc. Many of the girls are remarkably entrepreneurial and have started their own businesses to generate income. One successful program sponsored by NYOF is a henna-growing project. The Dang District, where thousands of the liberated girls live, is ideal for growing henna, a profitable crop in Asia. (It is used by both men and women to give a reddish tinge to black hair and to paint designs on the hands and feet for special occasions.) Some of the liberated girls have formed a co-op to grow henna, have purchased machinery to process it, and are making a profit. We plan to increase the number of such projects.

Higher education is not the same stepping stone to job opportunities in Nepal that it is in most Western countries; even people with advanced university degrees have difficulty finding work. Our limited funding is sometimes better spent on providing more children with elementary and high school educations and on efforts targeted at eventual employment and self-sufficiency.

The unemployment rate in Nepal hovers around 50%. Thus, for many youngsters, guidance and training in a specific career path is far more helpful than years of higher education. We offer counseling to explore their strengths and interests, and then support them in training for 20 different careers, such as electrician, lab technician, cook, or midwife. These jobs often pay better than the office jobs many college graduates hold out for.

Our vocational programs actively encourage women to pursue careers that in Nepal are traditionally restricted to men. At a technical training school in Kathmandu, NYOF sponsors the only female in the plumbing course. Once she’s employed as a plumber, she hopes to serve as an example to others that women should not feel that certain careers are off-limits.

The vocational training staff makes an effort to maintain personal relationships with students in the training programs. Many of them are orphans or have no family support – an important advantage in getting a job in Nepal. We teach them general life skills such as compromise and negotiation, as well as specific skills to help them search for employment. After the training is completed, staff members guide them through the process of searching for jobs – which can be extremely daunting given the high unemployment rate – and facilitate interviews with potential employers.

A number of our vocational trainees who have found decent paying jobs are attending college on their own nickel. One of these is Bashudev Basnet. His father died when he was very young, and his mother earned a living by operating a small tea stall at the bus park in Kathmandu. We supported the education of Bashudev and his brother. After he finished high school and passed his college entrance exams, he enrolled in our vocational program as a cook and he found employment at a fairly snazzy restaurant on the fanciest street in Kathmandu. He was such a good worker that after only a month on the job he got a raise. He has enrolled in college in the morning and then goes to work on the day and evening shift. Not only that, he is now able to support his mother.

We are deeply grateful to you for standing with us. Please give as generously as you can, so that we can continue to help kids in Nepal to uncover and develop their full potential. We have a proven track record in making the most of your donations – you can do more good with a dollar in Nepal than almost anywhere else, and we spend a very small percentage of donations on administration (as evidenced by our four-star rating from Charity Navigator). We hope you will help us in our efforts to make a difference in these children’s lives.

Please let us know your thoughts by providing feedback in our comments section! Also, please tell your friends, family and colleagues about NYOF’s accomplishments!

Warm regards, Olga

P.S. Watch a video about Ramchandra, a student whose life was transformed by NYOF and who has a truly inspirational outlook, at http://www.nyof.org/newsroom/video.html#ram

Did you ever see a better looking plumber?

Bashudev and his friends in action

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The far-reaching impacts of NYOF's scholarships

Olga Murray — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:16:07 GMT

Children who can now go to school, thanks to support from donors

Although the government of Nepal is undergoing more tumultuous changes, including a new Prime Minister, NYOF’s programs in Nepal are continuing to transform the lives of impoverished children, and provide them with unimagined opportunities. I’d like to share with you a couple stories of children who received scholarships from NYOF. One is now improving the lives of thousands of people in Nepal; the other will soon be making a similar impact.

About 15 years ago, we learned about a gifted medical student who had a scholarship to the best medical school in Nepal, but whose parents could not afford to pay his living and ancillary expenses. We chipped in for the last year or two of medical school, and when he was offered a surgical residency in Pakistan, we paid his airfare and living costs. Fast forward to 2009: Dr. Harish is now head of a large hospital in Nepal and a passionate advocate of medical care for the poor. Twenty percent of all patients at his hospital receive free medical care, and he is brimming with ideas about expanding medical assistance to those who cannot afford it. We are discussing the possibility of establishing a Nutritional Rehabilitation Home at his hospital to alleviate the problem of the many malnourished children in the area, as well as other ways of helping his mission. A pretty good outcome for an investment of a couple of thousand dollars several years ago.

Then there’s Santosh. We met Santosh when he was a little boy in about the third or fourth grade at a school that many of our scholarship students attended. The headmaster approached us and said that Santosh’s foreign sponsor had terminated his support, and that the school would have to expel him if he was unable to find someone else to sponsor his education. He mentioned also that Santosh was super-smart, especially in math and science. We asked to meet the boy. It was clear from his appearance and demeanor that he was a severely neglected child, painfully shy, and that no one had taken the trouble to teach him even the most rudimentary social skills.

We agreed to sponsor Santosh, and as expected, he excelled in his studies at every level. We educated him at probably the best private college in the country. With success has come self-confidence, and he has evolved into a charming, very kind, brilliant young man. He has been admitted on scholarship to a first-class American university for graduate study. Santosh is determined to return to Nepal and use the skills he acquires to improve the economic situation of his country.

Now here’s the zinger - Santosh grew up with virtually no parental guidance. He has had to care for his mother and sister all his life. When his mother was pregnant with him, his father, a brilliant doctor, went abroad for education and never returned. His mother became desperately ill and unable to care for herself or her children. Ever since he can remember, Santosh has been the responsible head of his family.

Thank you for supporting some of the most disadvantaged children in Nepal.

Please let us know your thoughts about this project by providing feedback in our comments section!

Ajeeta (here with her mother) is now a nurse, helping the needy!

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More information about the wide range of scholarships NYOF gives

More about NYOF's scholarships for needy children

Olga Murray — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:20:47 GMT

Education is the only real ticket out of poverty for destitute, disabled, or orphaned children in Nepal. But education in Nepal isn't like it is in Western countries. Imagine not even being able to go to school or learn the basic skills needed to participate in society, to get a job, to create a better life for oneself. Without an education, a child in Nepal is destined to lead a life of extreme poverty and backbreaking labor.

An education is the only way to break the bonds of poverty, low caste, and disability. This is especially true of girls, who are often illiterate, married off before they are 14, and spend the rest of their lives bearing children and working endless hours. The literacy rate is very low, especially among women, and there is little assistance available for school expenses.

We are committed to support impoverished children until they are able to stand on their own feet. From the first five college scholarships given personally by NYOF's founder, Olga Murray, to boys from an orphanage in 1985, the number of students in our scholarship program has grown to more than 4,000. In fact, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation is now one of the largest non-profit providers of scholarships in Nepal.

Why don't many Nepali children go to school? Government schools are often insufficient and the families cannot afford such simple items as the school uniform, supplies, and the small school fee. Private schools cost more than most families can afford. Often the family needs the money the child can earn by working. Abandoned children, of course, are forced to beg instead of study. Where schools do exist, there are often few trained teachers.

NYOF makes education possible for Nepalese children who have no other hope. We currently give scholarships to students from kindergarten through medical school.

Update on NYOF's Rural Scholarships

Olga Murray — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:46:42 GMT

Although 70% of Nepali children enroll in primary school, many of them drop out before the fifth grade. In the rural areas where we work, the dropout rate is very high. Often, a family simply can't afford the cost of the school uniform and school supplies, or even the very small school fee.

In several rural districts in Nepal, we give scholarships to thousands of children to cover their school expenses. This is the first generation in most of these areas to receive an education. The cost—about $75 a year per child—is an incredible investment. An education will best prepare these youngsters for the very difficult future that awaits them, since an increasing number of the next generation in Nepal's overpopulated hills will inherit no land and will have no choice but to find their fortune in the cities.

We've seen some interesting ripple effects from this program. Our scholarships motivate parents other than those whose children we support to send their children to school, too. There is social pressure in the village when some kids go to school and others do not. (Keeping up with the Joneses, Nepali style.) Some parents hope that their children will also be sponsored if they start school. The headmaster at one school told us that there was a noticeable rise in general attendance at his school after our scholarship program began.

NYOF’s field worker visits the schools regularly to check on the children and to see how the school is functioning. To do the job, he walks the mountain paths of isolated rural areas, sometimes ten hours a day, stopping at various village schools along the way to survey the situation and discuss problems with the headmasters and students.

A super-generous donor is supporting the education of 400 girls in rural areas of Nepal for five years. Most of these are from the Dalit (untouchable) community. The members of these low castes are among the most downtrodden people in the world. A few of these girls have already graduated from high school, and there is a NYOF college schoolarship waiting for them.

We have asked some of the girls we support in rural schools to write about their lives and ambitions. Pushpa, a student in class five writes, “Despite the …adversities, I am not hopeless….I am studying hard because I am determined to become a nurse and take care of the poor.” Kamala, who is in the 8th grade says: “After getting this scholarship I have been able to go to school regularly and keep myself neat and clean.” And Menuka writes, “I am happy that this scholarship has provided an opportunity for us to get education on an equitable basis with other rich and high class people. We can also become a renowned person if we get equal access of education.”

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Attachments:

NYOF's Spring 2008 Newsletter (PDF)