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Pulitzer Center Update March 4, 2009

Olga's Girls featured at Encore.org

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Every January, 83-year-old Olga Murray of northern California goes to southwestern Nepal for the...

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Olga Murray (right) speaks with several of the students at J and K House, the boys and girls schools she started for needy children in Kathmandu, Nepal. Her philanthropic endeavors have spanned over two decades for the poor and infirm, and for the past 10 years, her Nepalese Youth Opportunity Foundation has rescued over 4,300 girls from domestic slavery. Image by Carlos Avila Gonzalez. Nepal, 2009.

A Pig or a Goat to Keep a Girl from Slavery: Olga Murray's Encore Story



By Terry Nagel

Olga Murray's remarkable encore journey story of saving Nepalese girls from being sold into slavery is reaching wider audiences, thanks to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The 83-year-old resident of Sausalito, Calif., has saved more than 4,300 young girls from being sold as domestic slaves in a most unusual way: by trading pigs or goats for their freedom.

Encore.org first wrote about Murray in July 2008, after a story about her by Meredith May in the San Francisco Chronicle. The Pulitzer Center awarded May a grant to travel to Nepal, enabling her to tell Murray's story in greater detail, in an article called "Olga's Girls," a slide show and a video. All may be viewed on SFGate.com.

Continue reading at Encore.org

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