Former St. Charles resident Katie Hilborn wins humanitarian award

St. Charles native Katie Hilborn has been recognized once again for the impact her work has made on the world, fighting child trafficking in Nepal through undercover work, fundraising and the construction of a girls’ learning center.

Hilborn’s foundation, Global Orphan Prevention, works to combat child trafficking and provides aid to orphaned children and single mothers in Nepal. Their INpowement girls learning center houses over 30 students while they work toward their educations.

Global Orphan Prevention is an orphanage prevention and anti-trafficking charity Hilborn founded in 2011 that operates mainly in Nepal.

Hilborn said she has a special place in her heart for orphaned children. As a baby, Hilborn was taken in by Child Protective Services and adopted by a St. Charles family.

Hilborn said she was privileged to grow up in St. Charles with her supportive adoptive parents. She graduated from St. Charles East High School in 2001, before earning a degree in mass communications from Colorado Mesa University in 2006.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Hilborn was contacted by her birth mother, who was dying from multiple sclerosis.

“I was the typical entitled and spoiled St. Charles High School kid,” Hilborn said. “Then I watched her die.”

At age 20, Hilborn said, she was confronted with her own mortality and her own privilege for the first time. Hilborn said she then started thinking, “What is my legacy going to be? How am I going to be remembered? How am I going to leave the world a better place?”

Shortly after, Hilborn began doing volunteer work which led to her philanthropy and eventually her work in Nepal through the learning center.

Hilborn said her upbringing is what drove her down the path to work in orphan prevention, stopping trafficking and supporting teens’ mental health.

“I was extremely privileged to be raised in St. Charles, and I think it made me realize that I wanted to continue my efforts and allow others to be able to thrive and reach their potential,” Hilborn said. “I want to share the same opportunities I was given.”

After five years of doing volunteer work around the globe during her summers, Hilborn decided she wanted to start her own charity, and went to Nepal in 2011 to spend the summer volunteering with orphans.

She said the first thing she discovered was that most of the displaced children had living parents, and many were abducted and sold into the orphanages, which operate as for-profit businesses in Nepal. According to UNICEF, the majority of orphans worldwide have at least one living parent.

That summer, Global Orphan Prevention was born. Its initial purpose was to help single mothers financially so that they can afford to keep their children. The organization continued to grow until earthquakes struck in 2015.

After the earthquake, the charity pivoted to provide earthquake and disaster relief. She said delivering aid in the Himalayas was no walk in the park – just getting supplies to the summit was an arduous journey that required hours of hiking in dangerous terrain, not to mention the numerous aftershocks that hit in the three months after the earthquake. It also was monsoon season.

As winter approached in 2015, many of the teams providing aid returned home, but Hilborn began to decide her next mission. A colleague told her about a village in the mountains of Nepal that was notorious for child trafficking and they decided to go in undercover.

“I was extremely privileged to be raised in St. Charles, and I think it made me realize that I wanted to continue my efforts and allow others to be able to thrive and reach their potential. I want to share the same opportunities I was given.”

—  Katie Hilborn

Hilborn and her group went into the village under the guise of World Food Program workers collecting earthquake data. Canvassing door to door, they found that indigenous children were being taken.

It was then Hilborn decided she would build a center for students to protect and foster them while they worked toward an education and a better life.

Since 2015, Global Orphan Prevention has been working alongside Operation Underground Railroad, which runs rescue missions to find missing children after Hilborn does her undercover work to provide intel. She said she acts as the prevention piece, and OUR is the rescue piece.

Just east of the village, in the town of Ghyangphedi, Hilborn built the INpowerment Center & Dormitory for girls through the Global Orphan Prevention organization. The project was completed in February 2020, and now houses 32 students in grades 4-11 and fosters their educations.

Hilborn said building the center has been her hardest challenge. She said fundraising efforts took nearly six years, everything had to be built to withstand earthquakes, and hauling materials up into the mountains was neither easy nor cheap.

While a devastating number of children in Nepal went missing after the earthquake, Hilborn said it shed light on a problem that had long been ignored.

“There was a silver lining to the earthquake, in that it brought international attention to a centuries old problem,” Hilborn said. “If the earthquake didn’t happen, we would have never gone there.”

Hilborn was first awarded for her humanitarian efforts in 2016, when she was named runner up for the millennial change maker of the year award, and since then has been recognized a total of seven times for her humanitarian efforts.

In February of this year, Hilborn received her most recent, and most prestigious recognition, earning silver in humanitarian leader of the year at the Anthem Awards. Notable winners from this year’s awards included Michelle Obama and the Dalai Lama.

Global Orphan Prevention also was recognized at the 2022 Anthem Awards, receiving two silver medals for their humanitarian efforts.

Those who wish to help Hilborn in her efforts can sign up to be monthly donors, make a one-time donation, attend her events or join in their expeditions to Nepal and see the work for themselves.

To join on the Nepal Expedition to visit the center, email Katie@GlobalOP.org. Hilborn also can be booked to speak at events on her website.

Hilborn said the next step in her journey is a new charity organization called Compass Rose International, which is a female empowerment, anti-trafficking and mental health organization.

Hilborn said Compass Rose International will work locally to support young women’s mental health, while fighting trafficking overseas.

Hilborn now lives in Colorado, but was surprised to learn that a trafficking ring has been uncovered in her hometown. Last month, authorities announced the arrest of five people on felony charges of involuntary servitude and the rescue of seven women who were being sex trafficked in brothels in St. Charles, South Elgin, Elgin, Hanover Park, Palatine and Chicago.

“No freaking way,” Hilborn said. “I’m beyond shocked. I never would have thought in a million years that a town like St. Charles would have such a dark underbelly.”

July 30 was the United Nations’ World Day Against Trafficking in Persons. The U.S. State Department estimates that there are 27.6 million human-trafficking victims worldwide at any given time.