Broken Leg, Broken Children | Olga Murray had fallen hard for Nepal—so hard, in fact, that she slipped and fell on a trek in the Himalayas. Carried for days in a basket on the shoulders of a Nepalese porter back to Kathmandu, she consulted a young Nepali orthopedic surgeon who had just opened a small hospital for children. All treatment was free and of a very high standard. Day after day, she saw kids with the most terrible disabilities being brought to the hospital, often carried for days down mountain trails, accompanied by dazed relatives, many of whom had never been out of their villages and had never seen a car or electric lights.

Some of these children were abandoned at the hospital by families too poor to feed a child who couldn't contribute to their survival. Others were so badly disabled that they couldn't get to school over the mountain trails when they returned to their villages. Still others had intolerable home situations. With friends, Olga began giving scholarships to some of these kids, too.

By 1990, people had heard about this work and wanted to help. The Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation was formed in 1990 and was granted tax-exempt status by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Two years later, Olga Murray retired from the practice of law after 37 years as a research attorney with the California Supreme Court. She began to devote all her time to the welfare of Nepali children.

In 1992, NYOF's first children's home, J House for boys, was born out of a necessity of the heart—the desire to keep a group of homeless boys, supported in boarding school by NYOF, living together in the ad-hoc family unit the boys had formed. The school had proved unsatisfactory for a number of reasons, but and NYOF's staff couldn't find a good boarding school that would accept the entire motley group of boys. We didn't want to separate them because they had grown so close to one another, with the older kids being so helpful to their younger "brothers." So we rented a small two-bedroom house and hired a supervisor. The boys themselves named it "J House" after the house's location in the Jawalakhel district of Patan, in the urban Kathmandu area.

After two years, the first J House was full to overflowing, so we moved the kids to a larger and more comfortable home. By then we had taken in some girls, too, and J House became coed, with the top floor holding six girls. By 1994, even the larger house was bursting at the seams. It's hard to turn these kids away! We rented another nearby house—and K House (for girls) was born.

One would think that caring for over 40 rambunctious youngsters and supporting dozens more in school was already a handful. But in Kathmandu, everywhere you turn there's more opportunity to help. Through local doctors, we learned of another pressing problem.

Picture a sixteen-year-old rural mother carrying her sick, malnourished toddler on her back for days over rugged mountain trails to be treated for infection in a Kathmandu hospital. The child is cured of the infection but discharged while still severely emaciated—an all-too-common practice at the overloaded hospitals. No one has taught that young mother how to prepare nutritious meals using the foods readily available in rural Nepal. With her child still malnourished, does she begin the long walk back to her village, where her child faces terrible potential for physical or mental disability due to lack of nourishment? Or does someone step in? Read on....

Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | Next