While studying abroad in India, Maggie took an internship at a nonprofit organization called Ramana’s Garden. It was this internship that brought Maggie face-to-face with the struggle refugees fleeing the violence of the war,

“People were just sending kids the border to get them out. A lot of the Maoist rebellion strategy was to recruit child soldiers, and the tactic was to start in rural areas and take one child from every house. We were seeing people had lost parents and family in the ward and people forced to fight and kids just forced to leave because of the effects of poverty.”

Maggie forged a friendship with one of these refugees, a girl about her same age named Sunita. When the internship ended, she and Sunita trekked from India into Nepal in search of Sunita’s family. When they reached Sunita’s village, they found it had been decimated by the war. They found children doing manual labor instead of attending school, and Maggie knew she had to do whatever she could to help. Together with Sunita’s uncle Top, and a few thousand dollars saved up from babysitting jobs, Maggie created BlinkNow, a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering Nepalese children by providing them a safe environment in which to grow, and giving them access to a quality education.

“It's not just learning basic literacy, there's this… whole child principle and what a child needs to thrive and grow within a community because the community is important. The family's important. And each, and every story was different, but you could see that there were these key, crucial elements that were needed and that led and helped us grow through our program.”

Like any many young organizations tackling big challenges, the story of BlinkNow is one of action, tenacity, innovation, and more than its fair share of luck. Today, that little organization launched by Maggie and Top has matriculated nearly 150 children, all orphans who might otherwise have very different futures ahead of them,

“They're up there with like the army school and the fancy private schools in the region. They’re winning soccer tournaments and poetry competitions and dance competitions…  It's not rocket science. Like you give a child love and loving teachers, whole nutritious food, and the beautiful, all in all comprehensive curriculum and an after school program and a family counselor and home visits, you know, bring the family in. You can almost do anything. These children have so much potential.”

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