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.
Opportunity's Partner Healing Fields Foundation collaborates with Stanford Emergency Medicine Department to Improve Health and Wellness in India
Opportunity International supports a training program in conjunction with Healing Fields Foundation to create Community Health Leaders in India. Health leaders complete six months of classroom training and a 6-month internship to learn how to identify and address health issues in their community. Water, sanitation and renewable energy are important components of the training. Each leader is able to educate at least 250 households over the course of training. Overall, more than 3,000 health leaders…
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Opportunity EduFinance Partner in Uganda Named Finalist for European MicroFinance Award
The organisers of the European Microfinance Award today announced that Opportunity Bank of Uganda (OBUL) was among its three finalists for the award, which highlights the work of MFIs in enabling access to education for children and/or skill-training for youth and adults to enhance their employment and self-employment opportunities. The Selection Committee for the 7th European Microfinance Award, composed of members of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, European Microfinance Platform…
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Peace is Possible
Peace isn’t a word we hear very often these days. When we turn on the news, we see reports of bombs and rebels and gun violence. We hear stories of a life taken on the other side of the world, and yet another taken just down the street. We hope for peace, but we don’t see it materializing. If anything, it feels like we are becoming increasingly less peaceful, as opposed to more. If I’m honest, sometimes peace feels impossible. But on a day like today – the International Day of Peace –…
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Not So Small Change: Meeting Opportunity Clients in Colombia
I sat in the window seat watching the landscape change from paved roads to dirt and brick homes to lean-tos as the bus wove its way up the mountains of southern Bogota. Next to me sat Yaneth, a former guerrilla rebel who now serves as the group lending manager in one of Opportunity’s branch offices. At the top of the mountain, the wind swept our hair and chilled our bones. We tiptoed over discarded garbage that littered the potholed road and made our way to Nubia’s home, then Maria’s. We saw…
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Celebrating Peace in Colombia
After more than 50 years of conflict, Colombians today are celebrating a historic and momentous peace agreement, turning a new page for a country with incredible potential for transformation. The Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which is the oldest and largest rebel group in the country, announced Wednesday they had reached a peace agreement to end the longest-running war in the Americas – a deal four years in the making. Though the peace process will…
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Join Global Citizen at the 2016 Youth Advocates Symposium
Since 2008, Global Citizen has spearheaded events to generate social action and worked with partners like Opportunity to end extreme poverty by 2030. Now, Global Citizen will host the first-ever Youth Advocates Symposium on September 22, 2016 in New York City, the same week as the Global Citizen Festival. The symposium will gather young activists from around the world with unique campaigning and advocacy backgrounds, allowing for an engaging exchange of experiences, strategies and practices geared…
Read MoreA "Smart" Approach to Protecting Families in Poverty
Jose Sanchez, like so many parents around the world, worries about his kids. Each day, he gets up early to operate his food cart in the local marketplace, earning as much as he can to provide his children with a better life. No family should be too poor to feel safe. Yet, when parents like Jose have less than $2 a day to live off of, each moment is filled with insecurities. For Jose, it was not knowing when he could feed his children next, or how he’d afford medical care if they got sick. And,…
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School Loans, Job Creation, and the Advancement of Low-Income Communities
The following post was originally posted on Edufinance.org. In a new third-party analysis of 94 Ugandan schools accessing Opportunity EduFinance loans, the resulting school growth created an average of 18.6 additional jobs within the community. How Schools Expand When a school builds new classrooms, dormitories and other infrastructure, the school requires more staff to manage these facilities including teachers, dorm monitors, security guards, and cooks among others. When a school purchases a school…
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Nicaragua Field Update
Opportunity works to provide sustainable economic opportunities in Nicaragua, but what does that mean for our clients exactly, many of whom are smallholder farmers? Agriculture is one of Nicaragua's largest industries and yet the practices and materials most farmers use are outdated and hinder their production. Yucca is the main crop grown by small farmers, but without access to technical support and profitable markets, most farmers sell yucca at local markets at low prices and struggle to earn a…
Read MoreTeach Your Kids to Give Well
I’ve learned many things from my parents. How to swim, book a plane ticket, bake a pie and ride a bike. How to read and write and update a resume. They taught me how to manage my personal finances, even when there wasn’t much to manage. And perhaps most importantly of all, they taught me how to give. These days, philanthropy is trendy and newsworthy and always on the cutting edge. New, effective initiatives like impact investing and holistic community development are not only changing the face…
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