Olga Murray had a big plan. She had been volunteering in Nepal for several years when she found out that in a nearby area, poor farmers would sell their daughters as slaves to wealthier families at the cost of $35 - $75. The families of the would-be slaves felt they had no alternative - without selling their daughters, they compromised the entire family’s ability to survive.

Olga Murray knew she had to come up with a solution quickly. She recognized the importance of pork in these communities and that a pig could easily fetch the amount of money that these families needed.

In 1989, she began going door to door, offering the poor family free piglets in exchange for keeping their daughters safe, at home. In addition, she offered to pay for the girl’s education through her group, the Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation. Out of 37 Nepalese families she approached, 32 took the offer.

19 years later, Murray and her organization have continued their offer. As a result, more than 3,000 girls have been given the opportunity to remain at home with their families as well as flourishing in a solid educational program.

“The local schools are full of former kamlaris (girl slaves) and the size of the classrooms are swollen, and girls are outnumbering boys,” Murray’s business partner, Som Paneru, wrote in an e-mail to the Chronicle. “We’ve already built over 35 new classrooms, but the need is still not fully met.”

“At rallies, or on the radio, they promise out loud that their little sisters will never, ever go through what they did, and that’s when you hear them start to cry,” said 83-year-old Murray.

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