How Opportunity International helps women escape poverty by starting a business
Throughout the Global South, Opportunity International is helping underserved communities work their way out of poverty – not through handouts but by providing access to credit and education in financial literacy.
With the majority of its work focusing on women, International Women’s Day feels like the ideal time to celebrate some of the amazing people the charity has helped go from poverty to become successful business owners.
Opportunity International works by facilitating microfinance to those usually unserved by banks, as well as helping to sustain those businesses. They work with local partners, who work with projects in the long-term as well as offering insight into communities.
The charity says more than 60 per cent of its clients are women, who often face more barriers to starting a business as they are less likely to have access to the collateral or assets required for traditional credit. It’s also been shown that repayment rates are better when lending to women and that their businesses are more likely to have benefits for an entire family.
The relationship with Opportunity International gives women the skills and confidence to not only start a business, but grow it, from expanding their operations to negotiating more effectively with the next stage of the value chain.
“There is so much potential in women in the Global South,” says CEO Nana Francois. “We have ambitions to help at least another 100,000 women, be that through access to financial literacy training, or a loan of as little as £50. We would love the readers of CityAM to contribute and help us however they can – it’s not all doom and gloom and a little help can go a long way.
“Opportunity International is an amazing confluence of expertise – we’re not just relying on goodwill, we have a knowledge of how to create financial literacy, how to create the right kinds of products for underserved populations, how to help more conventional banks and financial institutions understand what you might need in order to help a refugee with no access to collateral. We’re grounded in solid knowledge and skill in microfinance.
“The other attraction is really about the self-help model – giving a hand-up not a hand-out. It’s about helping people to sustain themselves and their community.”
So while the journeys undertaken by many of the clients Opportunity International works with are undeniably harrowing, we wanted to take the chance to celebrate these amazing success stories. Below are three clients who have turned around not only their own lives but the lives of their family and community by starting successful businesses.
- To find out more about Opportunity International visit opportunity.org.uk
SEPHORA, HYGIENE PRODUCT ENTREPRENEUR
Sephora is 19 years old and from Congo, North Kivu. She fled to Nakivale in 2017 after her uncle was murdered and her father was stabbed. She was able to partner with Opportunity International through Unleashed, a refugee-led organisation. She went through a programme of business training, learning about savings, loans, management and other necessary skills.
She then started her business, which she called Her Pride. Her Pride Cream is made out of organic materials and is used to help prevent vaginal infections, allowing women to have a safe cycle and to reduce pain through their menstrual cycle. It enables girls to go to school and sit for a couple of hours while they study, instead of staying home in pain.
The products support women in the refugee settlement, where there is a lack of proper sanitation or hygiene.
Sephora now has a source of income and can help her family, including sending her siblings to school. The business has helped 200-300 adolescent girls and women within the community and Sephora is now a source of inspiration to other girls and women. She says she would now like to create more job opportunities for pregnant teenage girls.
JANET, FARMER and SCHOOL FOUNDER
Janet thought it was impossible to start her own business. Today she owns two. She first became a smallholder farmer, producing coffee, maize and beans. This provides a steady income for Janet, her husband and her two children.
She also has a teaching certificate and keen interest in education. She thought she would need to move to a big city but our training motivated her to establish her second business, a local nursery school. She took out a loan and received financial training from Opportunity International to start it up.
JOLLY, HAIRDRESSER
Jolly is a single mother who used to struggle to pay her children’s school fees. On receiving a loan through Opportunity International, she was able to buy equipment such as a chair, cabinet and dryer to set up her own hair salon.
Seven years on, the business is thriving and she now owns her own home. All of her four children attend school, and she also employs one other person.