Stories
Skip the Mall Today
We’re offering a way for you to skip the mall and spread the joy all at the same time. Instead of fighting the crowds on Black Friday, order Opportunity International gift cards at opportunity.org/giftcard for all your family and friends. With our gift cards, they’ll experience the joy of helping an entrepreneur like Margaret Wangui (pictured) grow her business with a small loan—enabling her to feed her family, send her children to school and improve her community. In addition, right now, your…
Read MoreWe’re Grateful for You
On behalf of Opportunity International’s global family, we want to wish you a very blessed and happy Thanksgiving holiday. This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for contributors like you who work side by side with us to empower families in poverty and create lasting change in the world. Your support means so much to both our clients and our staff. It makes it possible for clients like Ghanaian cocoa farmer Beatrice Duku Frimpomg Boaten to obtain a savings account, loan and insurance from Opportunity.…
Read MoreInnovation to Aid the Horn of Africa: USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs
Last Thursday, USAID administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah spoke at The Chicago Council on Global Affairs lunchtime talk entitled “America’s role in Food Security and the Horn of Africa Famine.” Administrator Shah began with slides and stories from the amalgam of refugee camps that make up the Dadaab camps in Kenya. The camps, which were built for 90,000 people and currently house 380,000, now make Dadaab, according to Shah, the third largest city in Kenya. And every day, more people, mostly Somalian…
Read MoreOpportunity Celebrates 40 Years at “Side by Side” Gala in Minneapolis
Last Thursday night, more than 400 guests gathered at International Market Square in Minneapolis, Minn. to celebrate Opportunity International‘s 40th anniversary at a gala event, “Side by Side: Celebrating 40 Years of Opportunity.” The evening included entertainment by Minnesota resident and contemporary Christian singer Sara Groves and the African musical group Duniya Drum and Dance, and featured a reception, dinner and a silent auction for a number of prizes including a five-day Insight Trip…
Read MoreToday, Opportunity International and Empact’s Young Entrepreneurs Are at the White House
Today, Opportunity International and Empact visit the White House. Empact, formerly known as Extreme Entrepreneurship Education, is honoring the country’s top 100 young entrepreneurs on their Empact 100 list at a White House event with senior administration officials from 2:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern time. Opportunity staff member Sonya Perez-Lauterbach, the manager of Young Ambassadors for Opportunity (YAO), will be giving a brief introduction about Opportunity’s work, our partnership with Empact,…
Read MoreOpportunity Participates in the 2011 Global Microcredit Summit
This week, one of the largest microfinance industry conferences in the world launches in Valladolid, Spain. The 15th annual Global Microcredit Summit runs Monday, Nov. 14-Thursday, Nov. 17 and features Her Majesty Queen Sofía of Spain, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, and more than 2,000 delegates from over 100 countries, including Opportunity International‘s Richard Leftley, president and CEO of our microinsurance subsidiary MicroEnsure. The Summit gathers microfinance practitioners,…
Read MoreTunes for Tanzania–who knew a Tuesday could be this good?
While everyone seemed moved by the goal of building a bank in Tanzania, as I gauged from the robust rounds of applause, Tuesday’s Tunes for Tanzania event was also just a good time for all. We packed into Schubas in Chicago to listen to the music of three different bands; we strategized to win tantalizing raffle prizes; and all around the room, circles of people kept morphing to make new conversations. It was a room full of YAO members, their friends, and people who’d heard about the event online…
Read MoreCarlos Moreno-The Success of Opportunity’s First Microfinance Client
Carlos Moreno was a small business owner selling spices in Santiago de Cali, Colombia, but he knew he needed additional funding in order to grow his business. In 1971, Carlos became Opportunity International’s very first loan client. Today, Carlos says, “My loan helped me expand my business so I could sell 52 different spices, teas and medicinal herbs.” With the loan, he was able to purchase spice dryers and grinders to expand his small factory, and increase his spice crop yields on his farm.…
Read MoreMeet Ugandan Staff Member Frida Mungoma, Education Finance Manager
This past Monday, just after arriving in the United States, Opportunity Uganda‘s Education Finance Manager Wakhasa Frida Mungoma–known as Frida–sat down with me at the Opportunity-US offices in Oak Brook, Ill. for a discussion of her work, the challenges she faces and the most rewarding aspects of her job. Below, see brief excerpts of my conversation with the soft-spoken, dynamic education finance loan officer. This was just the first stop on Frida’s U.S. visit, which will take her all around…
Read MoreWhat We’re Watching: Top 3 Conference Videos on Technology
Check out our top 3 videos on technology from our fall conference in San Francisco–click on the speakers’ names to watch. 1. Steven LevySenior writer at Wired; Author of In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our LivesSteven Levy: “The most prominent leaders in the technology world today believe that the first step in doing the impossible is freeing yourself from the constraint that something can’t be done. What if we thought of ending poverty in that way? When I wrote In the Plex,…
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