A memoir of a life across continents

This month, the Opportunity Book Club is traveling across countries and continents through Nadia Owusu’s powerful memoir, Aftershocks.

Owusu, born to a Ghanaian father and Armenian-American mother, bounced from place to place as a child—living in Italy, Uganda, England, and Tanzania all before she reached adulthood. Her life was defined by movement, instability, and profound loss; her mother left when she was two, and her father died when she was 13.

Left to be raised by her stepmother, Owusu spent the next season of her life struggling to define herself. Who was she without a place to call home? Who was she without parents to show her the way?

Owusu’s memoir is powerful and inspiring—and has been celebrated as one of the “Best Books of 2021” by Vulture, Time, Esquire, NPR, and Vogue.

Here at Opportunity International, we were especially interested in Owusu’s experiences in Uganda, a country where we serve thousands of families. While Owusu grapples with her identity, our clients in Uganda face their own set of questions: How can I care for my family? How can I give my children a bright future?

Opportunity is honored to help families answer these questions through loans, savings, training, education finance, agriculture finance, and more. These tools equip people to build sustainable livelihoods, educate their children, and create futures for their families—futures marked by opportunity and hope.

We hope you’ll join us this month as we read Owusu’s memoir—and celebrate Opportunity’s incredible clients in Uganda.

We can’t wait to read with you!