The Opportunity Podcast

The needle on Damaris’ sewing machine never slows down. Up down up down — all day long, all week long, all year long.

But like the needle on her machine, life itself moves up and down. And Damaris, like everyone around the globe, soon suffered the devastating blow of COVID-19.

Damaris only had one option: Pivot. Come up with something creative that could salvage the beautiful thing she had built.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world, and want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In this unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by Damaris’ story.

But more help is still needed.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

At 8 years old, Maria Christina dropped out of school to maintain the family home.

At 13, she married and was pregnant with her first child.

After struggling for many years and with the encouragement of her friends, Maria opened a restaurant. It was not an instant success, but Maria had spent her whole life persevering, and she wasn’t about to give up now.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world, and want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In this unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by Maria’s story.

But more help is still needed.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

A dream. A vision.

The Filadelfia School in Bogata, Colombia, was founded with the unwavering belief that deaf students deserved the same rights as hearing children. An understanding that, when given the opportunity, a deaf student could learn, develop leadership skills, and become powerful agents of change.

In an effort to bring more learning opportunities for their students, they reached out to local Opportunity International Partners to expand their programs and deepen the quality of education they were providing.

Participation in these programs means that students like Jessina are no longer isolated, but able to communicate and now dreams of going to university.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world, and want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In this unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by Jessina’s story.

But more help is still needed.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

Nahid worked long hours hunched over her fabric weaving garments for a neighbour — earning only a dollar a day. It was impossible to plan for the future. Impossible to save for her children. And impossible to see a way out.

That was until there was a glimmer of hope — an opportunity.

Gem by gem, garment by garment, Nahid began building her own business, her own success, and her own future.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world and we want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In this unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by their story.

But they still need your help.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

Luis loves to drive. He turned that love into a career as a bus driver, until a turn into a dangerous neighbourhood left him paralyzed.

With the help of Opportunity International, Luis was able to get back in the driver seat. That was until COVID-19 and a hurricane altered his plans yet again. 

On November 5, 2020, Hurricane Eta made landfall on the Caribbean Coast of Honduras.  Days before it arrived, heavy rains had already battered the landscape causing landslides, mudslides, overflowing rivers and streams, and washing away roads. 

As the clouds cleared in mid-day, the destruction left behind was becoming clear.  Entire cities were under water and people sought refuge on roofs of houses waiting for passing boats to rescue them.

Francisco Banegas Arias, CEO of IDH, indicated that most of the impact was on the on the homes of clients.  He said, “We have been restructuring loans due to COVID, but now it will be difficult to restructure loans when the client homes and other assets, have been destroyed. Please pray for them.”

When you look at photos and videos from devastated neighbourhoods, with everything gone and so much work to do, you might ask, “Where does rebuilding start?”

It can start with you.

Journey with us down a dusty road to remote Haiti as you meet Mimose. As a woman living in ultra-poverty in Haiti, she is familiar with having every obstacle in front of her.

That was until Mimose met Opportunity and a new pathway began to form, with some goats for company.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world and we want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In this unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by their story.

But they still need your help.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

As we launch Season 2 we wanted to provide something a little different.

If there ever was a year to spread hope, joy, peace and strength, this is that year. We have collected a little bit of hope from all over the world and we want to share stories and a message of meaning. We trust it will inspire you.

In this episode you will meet Linda, a bread maker with a dream.

At Opportunity International, our clients are our heroes – they do the heavy lifting day in and day out. In the midst of an unprecedented global crisis that is setting poverty gains back significantly, they continue to find new ways to work and provide for their families.

We hope you were encouraged by their story.

But they still need your help.

You can invest in a strategic, sustainable response to the pandemic and support the work that these clients are continuing to do.

There are 3 ways you can help today:

Andrew McCusker, Opportunity's Head of Education Finance, joined us to talk about how our EduFinance initiative is helping accelerate an end to the global education crisis. 

For Opportunity, solving the global education crisis is not theoretical. We’ve seen parents and educators around the world already doing it—and doing it faster and better than we could have ever imagined. 

During our call Andrew will discuss how Opportunity offers the only systemic approach that helps more kids go to school and stay in school, while improving the quality of education schools provide. 

This work, we believe, is accomplished much faster and more effectively with a bottom-up approach: investing in the potential of local parents and educators who, impatient with waiting for their local public schools to improve, build their own affordable private schools to provide the quality education they envision for their children.

Everywhere, parents want to give their children a good education, and educators are stepping up to fill the gaps left by public school systems. Access to capital, blended with trainings and localized support, provides the catalyst for affordable private schools to rapidly expand and improve—and continue expanding and improving, long after Opportunity’s first intervention.

By building on the base of existing small loan clients, Opportunity's Health program focuses on training local women to become health leaders in their communities, allowing them to spread life-saving knowledge and care while earning an income to support their families. 

This program has already trained over 4,500 health leaders and have impacted almost 5.6 million people in their communities with lasting change.

Hear from Jessica Carter, Opportunity International Australia’s Asia Health Program Director, who says "Now more than ever we need to ensure everybody has access to basic health knowledge and care." 

Learn more about this program and how these health leaders are training to be on the front line of COVID-19 prevention.

As the Africa Director for Digital Financial Services for Opportunity International, Nick Meakin is responsible for overseeing the implementation and scale up of Mobile and Agent banking deployments and other digital inclusion engagements throughout Opportunity International’s partners in Africa.

These solutions serve people—disproportionately women—who are often illiterate and living without running water or electricity. They are remarkable women whose lives have been marked by difficulty, but whose lives have been changed by technology.

During our call Nick will share some of the ways Opportunity is changing the lives of our clients with technology and future opportunities to scale and reach for digital solutions.

We can use the tools that we have already developed—and the ones that haven’t been invented yet—to help small-holder farmers, keep kids in school, and break the cycle of multi-generational poverty. The Digital Financial Services team will continue to focus on groups of people that are often late to the digital revolution—mainly rural communities and women.

 Dan Murray, CEO of Opportunity International Canada share's and update on the impact of the COVID-19 and our clients.

Then hear from him as he lay's out the vision for the organization in 2020 and beyond.

Hear from our Program team as they share about the dynamic projects and programs that our Implementing Partners have going on this year.