Maggie Doyne and children at Kopila Valley Childrens Home, Nepal
Ten years ago, after graduating from a New Jersey high school, Maggie Doyne decided to travel the world before attending college.
Backpack in tow, she headed for Asia, where she lived in a Buddhist monastery, helped to rebuild a Fiji sea wall, and then traveled to India, where she worked with refugees from Nepal.
Nepal, located between India and China, is one of the world's poorest nations.
Maggie went to Nepal, and arrived at the conclusion of a ten year civil war, which killed 17,000 people and displaced 100,000 more.
As a result, many women and children were left to beg on the streets, struggling to survive.
Seeing the desperate situation, Maggie called her parents and asked them to wire the $5,000 in babysitting money she had saved.
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Maggie used the money to buy some land and worked closely with the community to learn their needs. Together, they built the Kopila Valley Children's Home.
Today, that home houses and cares for nearly 50 orphaned children, who otherwise would live on the streets.
But this was just the beginning of Maggie's work.
She started the BlinkNow Foundation to raise additional funding, and 23 year old Maggie and the community opened the Kopila Valley School.
Today that school educates 350 students who otherwise would receive no education.
Maggie's foundation and the community also provide the funding to pay for meals, clothes, books and other educational materials, so there is no cost to the children's families.
Many of those families live in mud huts, and don't have the money to pay.
To ensure the children's health, the school also provides medical care. And they now have a women's center as well.
What's next?
"We just bought a new piece of property to create a totally green and sustainable off-the-grid campus," Maggie told CNN.
"This year we converted to solar energy.
"So we'll have a high school and then a day care center, preschool, elementary, all the way up, and a vocational center where kids can become a thriving young adult with everything they need to succeed moving forward.
"It's become so much more than just a little girl with a backpack and a big dream. It's become a community [program]."
"And I want to teach and have other people take this example and hope this sets a precedent for
what our world can be and look like."
