The Sausalito Hero You've Never Heard Of

Olga Murray with Nepali childrenWikimedia commons

Olga Murray has got one of those classic American immigrant success stories that just blow your mind. She was born in 1925 in Transylvania, and her parents moved to the United States when she was six.

She was a star pupil in school, and earned admission at Columbia University where she graduated with honors, going on to get her law degree from George Washington University in 1954. The whole time she was in school, she paid her way through by researching and writing for the columnist Drew Pearson.

There were very few female lawyers In the early 1950s, and most firms only wanted women to be secretaries. But Olga's star quality Shone through, and she was offered the first job she applied for, working on staff for Phil Gibson, at the time the Chief Justice of California. Eventually, Murray was able to work her way onto the California Supreme Court, where she served a 37-year tenure, helping to advance the causes of civil rights, women's rights, and environmental policy.

She could have retired, but that's not who Olga Murray is. Towards the end of her legal career, she visited Nepal on a lark. She was already 66 years old.

"The minute I landed I fell in love with the country," Murray said, when interviewed years later. "The children, they held my hand, they laughed. They were just so delightful and they wanted to go to school. I said, 'Olga, you know what you're going to do for the rest of your life? You're going to educate the children.’”

I can relate to the love. As someone who did his Peace Corps service in Nepal, I can tell you that the country grips you right away. There's something loving and wonderful about the community energy there, something that we don't often experience in the west.

Looking for more good things happening in the world? Follow me for more!

...

Follow

Murray decided then and there to do something to help. In 1990, she started the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation (the name has since been changed to Nepal Youth Foundation), a nonprofit focused on fighting poverty, building schools, and rescuing young women who have been trafficked or forced into servitude.

"We were going to not be the great white saviors coming in and saving them from this destructive practice. But we would train them to save their sisters, to liberate their sisters," she said of the beginning of her organization.

In the last 30 ½ years, the organization has build 72 hospitals and assisted in educating more than 50,000 kids. And Murray believes that she is far from finished.

"I don't think about stopping and, you know, as long as I have my marbles and I'm healthy, I'll just continue to do that," she said.

The woman is 96 years old. NINETY-SIX years old, everyone.

When possible, Olga Murray spends half of every year in Nepal, and the other half at her home in Sausalito, where she works to raise funds for the Nepal Youth Foundation’s programs.

Looking for more good things happening in the world? Follow me for more!

...

Follow

Because of the foundation and her work with impoverished people, Murray has been honored many times. The Dalai Lama gave her the unsung heroes of compassion award in 2001. The king of Nepal gave her a medal in 2002. World of Children declared her a finalist in 2005. The GlobalGiving Marketplace on Borderless Giving declared Nepal Youth Foundation a finalist in 2005. The Nepal Youth Foundation has also been awarded the California Association of Nonprofits Award of Excellence.

The Nepal Youth Foundation has also featured heavily in mass media, appearing on PBS's NOW, ABC World News, and in the San Francisco Chronicle. Murray and the Nepal Youth Foundation were also featured on Oprah in 2002.

A life of service is a life well-lived.

Looking for more good things happening in the world? Follow me for more!

...

Follow

This is original content from NewsBreak’s Creator Program. Join today to publish and share your own content.