News Blog
Digital Finance in the Wake of COVID-19
The recent report, “People’s Money: Harnessing Digitalization to Finance a Sustainable Future,” highlights the importance of digital finance in helping to reach the Sustainable Development Goals and explores how digitalization can be used to support vulnerable people, reduce inequalities, and sustain livelihoods. It notes that a key to transformative impact, especially now, in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, is empowering people in their financing activities, especially as savers, borrowers,…
Read MoreA Bequest to Last a Lifetime: In Memory of Margaret Aydelotte
In 1953, a time when women were still excluded from many colleges and professions, Margaret Walker was making her own way. A London native, she excelled in the sciences and received a scholarship to attend Cambridge University’s Newnham College, where she pursed a degree in zoology and physiology. She stayed at Cambridge for her PhD in physiology, feeding a lifelong passion that would take her across the ocean, across another country, and across a lifetime. Shortly after receiving her PhD, friends…
Read MoreBringing Affordable Private Schools to the Table
In a recent letter directed to the G20, IMF, World Bank, Regional Development Banks, and national governments, 275 global leaders wrote: “With over one billion children still out of school because of the lockdown, there is now a real and present danger that the public health crisis will create a COVID generation who will lose out on schooling and whose opportunities are permanently damaged. While the more fortunate have had access to alternatives, the world’s poorest children have been locked…
Read MoreNine lives in the world's largest refugee camp
As we move into fall, the Opportunity Book Club is turning to a nonfiction book that will open our eyes to the plight of refugees in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. This month, join us this month as we read the incredible stories in City of Thorns by Ben Rawlence. “Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya where only thorn bushes grow, Dadaab is a city like no other,” Amazon’s book description reads. “Its buildings are…
Read MoreFacing a Global Hunger Crisis
Last week, the Associated Press, citing recent UN research, reported, “All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meager farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid. Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations.” Over 100,000 children will die because of hunger…
Read MoreGovernors Spotlight: Promod Haque
Promod and Dorcas Haque understand firsthand how an opportunity can change one’s life. As the daughter of missionary American parents, Dorcas spent her formative childhood years in rural, northwest Congo. While she and her siblings had the opportunity to pursue tertiary education and a sustainable career, many of her neighbors did not. For Promod, after graduating from university in India and accepted to Northwestern University for a master’s degree, he was denied scholarship or financial aid.…
Read MoreLives Lived Well
John Weberg traveled to the Dominican Republic in the late 1980s to evaluate microenterprise development. When I joined Opportunity International a couple of years later, I noticed in our records that every month since then, John and Jacque had contributed $1,000 without fail. Periodically I’d call to thank them, and their response was always the same, “No, thank you. Opportunity is doing the hard part. We just write the checks.” When I’d call to try to make arrangements to visit them in…
Read MoreTribute to Juan Ulloa
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord, your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 I first met Juan Ulloa in the late ’90s as we led Opportunity International Canada Insight Trips to Nicaragua, and we made a connection that I will cherish forever. Juan was a giant in our industry — as a leader and a man of God — and it was such an honour for us to serve alongside him. Opportunity Canada hosted Juan and his wife Ivania for one of our International…
Read MoreOpportunity International United States statement in support of racial equity, justice, and flourishing
As we join the world in anguish and lament over racism, oppression, violence, and injustice, we recall the very tenets on which Opportunity was founded. Opportunity International exists to extend opportunity to those living in poverty in the developing world – Africa, Asia, and Latin America — giving them the means to overcome oppressive economic and social systems, improve their lives, and join the economic mainstream. We do this, motivated by our call to serve those who are left behind…
Read MoreJune Book Club: The Hundred Wells of Salaga
The Opportunity Book Club began in 2018 with a curated reading list that represented a wide range of geographies, authors, and perspectives. Our community has traveled around the world from the comfort of our couches, investing in the lives and stories of people whose experiences often look so much different than our own. Now—as our national conversation centers around learning and challenging long-entrenched ways of thinking, dismantling systemic racism, and opening our ears to voices that…
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