50 Weeks of Opportunity
Each week for the next 50 weeks, we will share a piece of Opportunity’s history—major or minor, sobering or inspiring, we have gotten where we are today by facing some of the world’s greatest challenges, with you by our side. Please join us in celebrating the many impactful moments that have built the foundation on which we will embark on our most audacious vision yet: ending extreme poverty.
“Required reading for the entire human race.”
We are so excited to dive into Nobel-Prize-winning writer Gabriel García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude.
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Waymaker Wednesday: Linda
Inside a bread factory in Accra, Ghana, I was greeted by men whose hands were 3 times the width of mine. The baking ovens and the hot Accra sun made the room temperature well over 100 degrees. Suddenly, I feel this big hug around me, and I turn around. This, I soon learned, was Linda, the owner of the bakery. I’ll never forget meeting this woman in the blue shirt, who you see smiling before you as she did that day. She had gone through a transformation as a client herself, starting with 1 oven…
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Untapped Potential, Enormous Opportunities
Nestled along the Atlantic coast in West Africa, Ghana is a diverse and vibrant country. It’s home to farmers and families; merchants and makers; dreamers and doers. And, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, it struggles with economic poverty.
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Waymaker Wednesday: Joanna
We are lucky to have angels like Joanna in our midst—people who live solely to make their communities a better place. Here, on the left, is Joanna with some of the children in her school. Joanna started her school here in Ghana in a rural area where children just stayed at home, and the illiteracy rate is very high. She said her school gave the parents the freedom to go to their farms during the day to make enough money and make a living for their families. Not only did she provide an education,…
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‘WHEN YOU EDUCATE A GIRL, YOU EDUCATE THE WHOLE COMMUNITY’ - INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2022
‘Time to break the bias’ is the theme of International Women’s Day 2022. This year we are putting a spotlight on one of the many inspiring female leaders we have the privilege to work with.
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A new work by an Opportunity author
Strong Connections: Stories of Resilience from the Far Reaches of the Mobile Phone Revolution features the stories of Opportunity clients and is written by our dear friend and former colleague Rosa Wang.
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Waymaker Wednesday: Student
Today, a girl in Uganda is four times more likely to have a baby, than have a high school diploma before reaching adulthood. For her, the future is not full of hope, but it’s filled with worry and uncertainty. Education is the most powerful way to break free from the cycle of poverty. But the ability to go to school is a whole different story in rural areas. Most of them travel long, exhausting distances just to go to school. Just like this girl here, making her way from her farm to her school.…
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Life on the Margins: Meeting the Unique Needs of Refugees and Students in Uganda
On the edge of the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda, Senga Ndagize tills the land on his small farm. He lets the dirt sift through his fingers—dirt that is not his; dirt that doesn’t hold his history; dirt that holds hope and possibility; dirt that could give his family a bright future.
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A Lesson in Love from Gene Gardner
Last year in his retirement community, he invited his fellow residents to share concerns about local, national, and global issues they felt were important. This sparked a series of meetings where they invited organizations to educate them on an issue and what was being done to solve it and, most importantly, determine how they could help. This is how their Love Your Neighbor initiative was born.
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Waymaker Wednesday: Gentil
Gentil is an artist who escaped from Burundi. He used to run workshops for young artists and was accused by the government of training rebel soldiers so he had to flee. He now lives with his grandmother and nephews, who he supports in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement. Gentil, just like any other refugees, faced challenges of access to finance and income opportunities in the settlement. However, through our partner bank, he received a small loan. He used his loan to set up a local portrait business. He…
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