Women as Agents of Change

Location: Bihar, India

About the Project: In India, only 33% of women have an active bank account compared to 47% of men, while only 8% of agents in India are female. The Women as Agents of Change initiative empowers women socially and financially as last-mile financial service providers. The program’s agent banking model uses networks of female banking agents equipped with tablets/smartphones to provide banking services in hard-to-reach communities where there are no branches. Agent outlets run by local women provide a welcoming environment and high-quality services that help gain the trust and confidence for marginalized women to begin habitually using financial services and get the help they need to start their journey out of poverty. Since the initial pilot with 50 village women agents in 2017, Opportunity’s partner CDOT increased its total number of women agents to 398, representing 30% of the total agents by CDOT (up from just 3% in 2017).

Mentoring for Women in Business

Location: Ghana

About the Project: Opportunity’s partner Sinapi Aba launched the Financial Inclusion for Enterprise Development program in 2018 to increase access to financing, financial literacy, business training, and gender-equity strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) owned by women. These are growing businesses that can create jobs for those living in extreme poverty. Within this program, in January 2020, Sinapi launched a pilot project – Women in Business Entrepreneurial Mentoring Project, matching emerging women entrepreneurs with mentors: female entrepreneurs running successful businesses. Mentors provide support and guidance to the women entrepreneurs and facilitate learning using practical examples from their own experience. They teach the mentees business skills and how to think like an entrepreneur. The pilot project was successful with 52 mentors and 103 mentees. Sinapi launched a second cohort in April 2021, expanding to more branches and increasing the number of women to 225. Opportunity Uganda has reached out to Sinapi to learn more about replicating this program.

Operation PeaceMaker

Location: Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana, and West Bengal, India

About the Project: Tragically, 40% of Indian women experience physical, sexual, or emotional violence. MyChoices Foundation exists to give women, children, and families choices to live free from violence, abuse, and sexual exploitation in India. MyChoices Foundation’s project Operation PeaceMaker works with Opportunity’s local Indian microfinance partners to reduce domestic violence through thousands of empowered community women (PeaceMakers) who are trained in family and marriage counseling. Their five current Support Centers in Telangana offer spaces for victims of violence to receive legal aid, a safe home, helpline support, and partnerships with the local police to ensure that women or children facing abuse are supported. The COVID-19 pandemic’s lockdowns resulted in an increase in domestic violence; MyChoices feels compelled to expand its Operation PeaceMaker project beyond Telangana. The goal is to leverage the existing infrastructure of implementing partners in remote villages, to be able to quickly add counselors with each implementing partner to conduct intervention and prevention programs. This physical footprint growth, combined with the use of technology for a domestic violence helpline and online counseling options, could help Operation PeaceMaker reach 100 partners across eight Indian states.