Maggie Doyne created the BlinkNow Foundation to sustain, grow, and support Kopila Valley Children’s Home and School in Nepal, and to serve as a vehicle to share her ideas with young people, especially children in the U.S. Maggie believes that in the blink of an eye, we can all make a difference. At age 19, Maggie used her life savings (the $5,000 she had earned babysitting) to build a home for orphaned children in war-ravaged Nepal. Today, she is mom to over 50 children. In 2010, she opened a school for the region’s most impoverished children. The school now serves 350 students and is rated top in the region. Maggie was honored by the Dalai Lama as an Unsung Hero of Compassion in 2014. Her work was championed by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof in a cover story for The New York Times Magazine. In 2012, Maggie shared her story at the Forbes 400 Summit on Philanthropy, and in 2013 she received the Forbes Award for Excellence in Education.
Maggie had this to share when we asked her the question, "Why Should Children Go To School?"
"If it were up to the Nepali cultural and religious tradition, they would give preference to their sons. In 2004, girl enrollment was 26% and in 2012 it went up to 72%. If you talk to a woman in Nepal over the age of 30, it is very unlikely that she has any form of education at all, or that she can hold a pencil and write her name. Additionally, girls face challenges with trafficking and child labor.
So we wanted to swing the pendulum in a different direction and give priorities to them. I’ve been a big follower of the The Girl Effect, which is all about including girls in education, health and economic investment. Women and girls tend to stay within the community whereas men tend to leave. Women reinvest a lot of their income back into their family, passing it on to their own children. Invest in a girl and you educate a community, a country, and generations upon generations to come."
"If it were up to the Nepali cultural and religious tradition, they would give preference to their sons. In 2004, girl enrollment was 26% and in 2012 it went up to 72%. If you talk to a woman in Nepal over the age of 30, it is very unlikely that she has any form of education at all, or that she can hold a pencil and write her name. Additionally, girls face challenges with trafficking and child labor.
So we wanted to swing the pendulum in a different direction and give priorities to them. I’ve been a big follower of the The Girl Effect, which is all about including girls in education, health and economic investment. Women and girls tend to stay within the community whereas men tend to leave. Women reinvest a lot of their income back into their family, passing it on to their own children. Invest in a girl and you educate a community, a country, and generations upon generations to come."