Feed more hungry people. Rwandan rice farmer Elina Uwingeneye is an agricultural finance client who uses loans to grow more crops with better fertilizers, increasing yields.	Be nice to your mom. Loan client Maria Elena Tovar Gonzalez, from Guadalajara, Mexico, poses with her son. 93% of Opportunity’s loans go to women like Maria around the world.
Learn a new skill. Experienced artisan Maria de los Angeles Ordjonez carves elaborate designs into decorative pieces and household items to sell in her Honduras village.	Educate the next generation. Bright Ofori (left) and Clementina Dankwa learn at the Richmercy School, Ashaiman, Ghana, where proprietor Mercy Senyegah receives loans to improve her school.
Be a good friend. Beatrice Boaten and her fellow members of the Nerebehi Cocoa Farmers Association process the cocoa harvest together in Ghana.	Bring someone joy. A client who makes jewelry surprises loan officer Valamarthi with a beautiful bouquet in Chennai, India.

What are your goals for the New Year? Leave them in the comment field below.

Ahobrase Academy began in 1998 as a small nursery in Comfort’s home. Comfort realized that the children in her neighborhood loitered and never attended classes, so she wanted to provide a place for them to learn. In the beginning, it was difficult. She had to go out into the community and bring these children, some without clothes or shoes, into her home for lessons and food. She would bathe, clothe and feed them. The next day, the children would either return naked again or they would not come back at all. After a while, a friend advised her to remove the clothes and slippers and send them home as they had arrived. This worked like magic — the children came back every day. Gradually, as the number of students grew, Comfort thought of ways to expand since Ahobrase was outgrowing her small porch.

In 2009, upon a friend’s advice, Comfort turned to Opportunity for a school proprietor loan that would provide capital to purchase a building and expand the school. Today, Ahobrase Academy serves more than 700 students from pre-school to junior high school with an education previously unavailable in their neighborhood. The school is a source of jobs, with 38 academic and non-teaching staff.

Comfort’s dream is to complete the expansion of her school and to buy a larger school bus. She’s proud of the education that she and her husband are now able to give the local children.

If you’d like to invest in educating children, we invite you to partner with us. Help provide school fee loans to parents so that they can send their children to school, and school loans to proprietors like Comfort so that they can expand and improve their school buildings and facilities. Invest in education today »

Ana Serrano

Ana Serrano survived the first 20 years of her life on a Manila garbage dump, sifting through heaps of trash and dead animals to find food to eat and recyclables to sell. Her parents didn’t have jobs, and Ana and her three siblings were neglected by their family and by society. The food she and her siblings scavenged made them sick. Ana feared that if she stayed at the dump, she would feel worthless all her life. Eventually, she got a small loan from Opportunity Philippines to purchase food, candy, medicine and other goods for her grocery business. She worked hard and was able to pay off the loan in six months and used her savings to buy her own retail shop.

Ana with her child

“Poverty makes you dream about succeeding in life. I used to be one of the street children, now I have a family, I have a kind husband, and I have a business,” Ana said. Her story of transformation is awe-inspiring, but what’s most amazing is how her success has empowered her to give back. “I want to help other people, because my heart is soft for those who are poor,” she says. “The street children, when I see them I call out and give them food and water to drink, because I see myself in them.”

With Opportunity’s One Woman Holiday Challenge, you can invest in clients like Ana by starting an online fundraiser. Join the work that empowers her to transform life for herself, her family and the less fortunate in her community. That’s the power of one.

Ana Serrano from Opportunity International on Vimeo.

YAO-New York treasurer Alexa Chu says:

I work in public finance making low-income community loans and managing a bond portfolio. The best part of it is enabling U.S. community leaders to do projects that would not be possible otherwise. I’ve always wanted to make a difference beyond my local community.

I recently became involved with Opportunity International through YAO-NY and I volunteered to represent Opportunity at the Global Festival. It was a great way to promote awareness of global poverty and we had the chance to talk about the work of Opportunity and to explain how people could get involved directly. This awareness is a huge stride forward in providing access to basic banking products for many of the severely under-banked areas of the world.

What We’re Watching

Starting last week on World Polio Day, Global Citizen Festival rolled out the short films they showed at the festival on their Facebook page. Two of our favorites are “Primary Education” and “Gender Equality.”

For “Primary Education,” globalcitizen.org reminds us, “Educating a child no matter where they are is one of the biggest steps we can take toward ending extreme poverty.” At Opportunity we couldn’t agree more, which is why we give supporters a number of giving levels to help send a girl to school. Because when you send a girl to school, you give her the chance for a healthier, more hopeful future.

Primary Education:

“Gender Equality” is narrated by Whoopi Goldberg, and produced in partnership with the Half the Sky Movement. It makes sense that if we want to change the world, we need to start by empowering women with economic opportunity. Author Sheryl WuDunn says, “One of the best ways to fight poverty is to educate women and give them economic opportunity. Microfinance institutions are at the center of that solution.” That’s why 93% of Opportunity’s loans go to women. Because when women get a financial opportunity, they are almost three times more likely to reinvest their gains in their children, providing a powerful generational multiplier that accelerates economic growth.

Gender Equality:

Malin Akerman at Emprendedora School in Nicaragua in July

A couple weeks ago in L.A., I had the pleasure of reuniting with two incredible women, Geralyn Sheehan, Program Director at Opportunity Nicaragua, and Debbie Levin, President of the Environmental Media Association (EMA).

I met Debbie when I got involved with EMA’s School Gardens Program, which supports gardens in urban schools in the L.A. area. I love spending time with the students; through this experience I’ve learned about the positive impact just 45 minutes in the garden can have with children. They’re more focused, they score higher on tests, and they’re happier. I’ve been involved with EMA since 2010. Now, fast-forward to Opportunity International. When we were in Nicaragua over the summer, I saw the students planting their own crops, talking about their challenges and successes, and telling me about how this work will allow the school to be self-sustaining. It was then that I made the connection. We’re all in this together. It doesn’t matter if it’s a student in L.A. or in Nicaragua, they can succeed. But they need the chance. They need the opportunity.

From left: Geralyn Sheehan (Opportunity Nicaragua), Debbie Levin (EMA) & Malin at October’s event

That’s when I decided to make this important connection in L.A. I wanted to introduce my friends to Opportunity International and I wanted to bring Debbie and Geralyn together. Imagine, they’re two dynamic women working toward the same goal, to make the world a better place by providing students the resources they need to succeed. But they’re doing it across the world from each other. They’re both inspirations to me, and I wanted them to meet.

As soon as I returned from Nicaragua, I urgently called Debbie. She needed to know about Opportunity International and she needed to know about the Emprendedora School. I knew that we needed $65,000 to open new classrooms, and I knew that we needed a lot of support to get there. We planned the first of many small events to share information about Opportunity International and the school. Microsoft hosted the event at The Microsoft Experience venue in Venice Beach and, to everyone’s surprise, announced a donation of five laptop computers for the Emprendedora School.

“My work with Opportunity International is more exciting than landing a movie with Tom Cruise.” -Malin Akerman

From left: Actresses Carla Gugino, Malin & Emmanuelle Chriqui

It was amazing to hear both Geralyn and Debbie talk about their work, to see their faces light up when they describe the students. It was impossible not to feel the passion and excitement in the room.

My friends and fellow actors Emmanuelle Chriqui, Carla Gugino, Joe Truglio, and Beth Dover came to support the school and learn more. I thank them — and everyone else — who is supporting this fundraising campaign.

Malin and actor Joe Truglio

We have a long way to go, but through the power of one — one person, one contribution, one garden — we will get there. Please take a moment to contribute to the Nicaragua program, it’s more than a donation, it’s an investment in the future of the students and community in Grenada.

You can follow me on Twitter @malineakerman or join me on Facebook. And see my other Opportunity blogs at opportunity.org/malin.

Rampant poverty, which has festered for far too long, is linked to social unrest and threats to peace and security. On this International Day, let us make an investment in our common future by helping to lift people out of poverty so that they, in turn, can help to transform our world. -UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

School proprietor Mercy Senyegah in a classroom at Richmercy School, Ghana

Nothing is more important to ensuring a stable world than to empower people at the bottom of the pyramid to work their way out of poverty. To do that, you must start with the most basic but essential building block–education. This is more than common sense, there are facts, including these from USAID, to back it up. A few of the most alarming:

For every year of school completed, individual earnings increase by 10%.

A girl who completes basic education is three times less likely to contract HIV/AIDS.

A child born to an educated mother is twice as likely to survive to age five.

Education impacts more than just earnings, it creates better health, wider economic growth and alleviates poverty. (usaid.gov)

Students learning at Richmercy

Meet one woman working to make this goal of providing an education–and a better future for all children–a reality. She is Mercy Senyegah, the proprietor of the Richmercy School in Ashaiman, Ghana. In Ghana, though public education is free, the quality of the education at government-funded schools is often poor. So Mercy was determined to bring the opportunity of education to local Ashaiman families with few other options. When she first started her school, she had four classes of students that all had to share one classroom, and one in the school kitchen. She says that in the beginning, she didn’t know how to save and she felt she needed guidance. Today, she serves 250 students at her school, and has nine classrooms, six teachers, and five other staff. She used Opportunity loans to add classrooms, cement the floors, hire more teachers and serve lunch to children whose families can’t provide them with food. With future loans, and the guidance and advice of her loan officer Gabriel Addai Duah, Mercy one day wants to build a library, a computer lab and a lavatory at Richmercy.

Mercy and students in the schoolyard

Given the chance to learn, even children living in deeply debilitating poverty can transform their lives. Parents understand that and so do proprietors like Mercy.

In Ghana, Uganda and Malawi, 332 school proprietors are currently using $3 million in Opportunity loans and customized business training to improve their schools. (In Ghana, these loans are made possible in part by our partnership with the IDP Rising Schools Program.) In addition, over 2,600 families in three African countries and India have accessed school fee loans that help parents with unpredictable incomes cover tuition. Our education finance tools make it possible to reach more girls and boys, giving them a chance at a better future. Because of better education, and their ability to complete more years of school, they are almost guaranteed to have choices in life that their parents never had.

If you’d like to support this work, now is the time. Through several generous supporters, we’re offering a match on all gifts to our education program up to $75,000. So you can double your impact, sending more girls and boys to school, creating a more stable future for developing countries and the world. Learn more at opportunity.org/child »

Banking on Education:

Banking on Education from Opportunity International on Vimeo.

Globally, nearly 870 million people are undernourished–about 12% of the world’s population.

It’s World Food Day and social media is buzzing with challenging facts and stats about hunger, like the ones in this post. This information is important. There’s no doubt that it’s one of the great injustices that children anywhere go to bed hungry, that women compose a disproportionate amount of malnourished people, and that smallholder farmers make up half of the world’s hungriest people. But there’s also hope. If countries and NGOs step up their efforts, we can still reach the Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of hungry people by 2015, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva announced at the opening session of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) yesterday.

Hunger kills more people than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.

A meeting of the Cocuricyi rice farming cooperative in Rwamagana, Rwanda, with agricultural loan officer Jean de Dieu Kampayana (at right)

The theme of this year’s World Food day is “Agricultural Cooperatives – Key to Feeding the World.” Cooperatives and organizations can be the key to ending world hunger, helping to provide food security, generating employment, and lifting people out of poverty. In his official World Food Day message for the FAO, da Silva says that for NGOs, agricultural cooperatives are “natural allies in the fight against hunger and extreme poverty.” With a decline in national investments in agriculture, millions of small producers struggle to cope with crises in climate, markets, and prices, especially during global food shortages like the one in 2007-2008. Though many countries have renewed their commitments to ending world hunger, concrete support often lags behind these verbal promises.

Half of the world’s hungry people are from smallholder farming communities.

Most of the world’s smallholder farmers are struggling to live and feed their families on less than $2 a day. According to IFAD, many have not been able to respond to increased demand because they lack access to assets and capital, and they face higher transaction costs, which makes it difficult for them to adapt and respond quickly to market changes. Smallholder farmers don’t compete on equitable terms with big commercial growers. Often, they lack access to markets because roads are poor or transportation is too expensive and higher food prices don’t always filter down to them. They often have to shortsell their produce to make ends meet in the growing season.

One out of four children–roughly 146 million–in developing countries is underweight.

In order to increase global food supplies, smallholder farmers need secure access to land and water; rural financial services to pay for seed, tools and fertilizer; roads and transportation to get their products to market; technology to receive and share the latest market information on prices; and greater representation in decision-making processes. Cooperatives help fill the void, enabling farmers to overcome these constraints by providing members with access to a range of assets and services.

Women make up a little over half of the world’s population, but they account for over 60% of the world’s hungry.

It’s through agricultural finance tools that organizations like Opportunity are implementing systems that help vulnerable small-scale farmers have greater food security. In Sub-Saharan Africa, these tools enable them to grow more crops, increase their incomes and feed their families with:

• Loans to buy high-quality seed and fertilizer
• Training in best farming practices
• Insurance to protect their crops from natural disasters
• Access to markets where they can sell their crops at a good price

To feed the Earth’s growing population, food production will have to DOUBLE by 2050.

This is what Opportunity does in its work with smallholder farmers in remote, rural and agricultural communities in five Sub-Saharan African countries. Our Trust Group model is essential for farmers who may lack access to market linkages, and may have never before had access to formal financial services. We’re able to reach them via mobile banking vehicles and e-banking products, as well as through our loan officers and field staff who train them on best farming practices and in financial literacy. In addition, farmers receive support from their fellow Trust Group members and they have a forum in which to discuss their challenges, voice their concerns, and have a role in decision-making processes.

Sixty percent of the 10.9 million children under age five who die in developing countries every year, die from malnutrition and hunger-related diseases.

“It has been said repeatedly that we have the means to eliminate hunger and malnutrition,” da Silva notes. “What is needed is the establishment of an enabling environment that allows small producers to take full advantage of available opportunities. Strong cooperatives and producer organizations are an essential part of that enabling environment.”

That environment is what Opportunity creates for smallholder farmers.

Looking for a new way to help Africa’s smallholder farmers? Buy our t-shirt, made by our partner Made for Good. Your purchase will help a farmer grow more food to feed her hungry family, her community and her country!

The Day was officially enacted by a UN General Assembly Resolution this past March, which recognized that the “empowerment of and investment in girls” is “critical to economic growth” and to achieving the UN Millennium Goals (including the eradication of extreme poverty). It stated that girls’ “meaningful participation in decisions that affect them” is key in “breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and in promoting and protecting the full and effective enjoyment of their human rights.” It recognized that “empowering girls requires their active participation in decision-making processes and the active support and engagement of their parents, legal guardians, families and care providers, as well as boys and men and the wider community.”

Ramya, a scholarship recipient, takes the mike to introduce herself to Insight Trip travelers when they visit her school.

The theme of today is “Too Young to Wed.” The Nike Foundation finds that when a girl receives seven or more years of education, she will marry four years later and have 2.2 fewer children. When women wait until after their teenage years to have children, it dramatically improves maternal and infant mortality. Giving girls the tools to take a more active role in public life, and the skills to be financially independent, not only improves their well-being but that of their future children too! And this week, this emphasis on the importance of education is even more poignant as we read the sad news that Malala Yousufzai, a champion of girls’ education and girls’ rights in Pakistan, and two other girls were shot by extremists while walking to school. Speaking today at a high-level panel discussion, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted that the Day is also an occasion to highlight the “alarming” levels of discrimination, violence and abuse that girls face worldwide. “The attack on [Malala] was abhorrent and cowardly,” said the Secretary-General. “The terrorists showed what frightens them most: a girl with a book. Nowhere in the world should it be an act of bravery for a young girl to go to school.”

In honor of the Day, we’d like to share the story of one little girl who is full of hope that she will be able to achieve her dreams. She is the recipient of a scholarship through Opportunity’s education finance program in India. Her name is Ramya, she is in first grade and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. (See the picture at right of Ramya and several of her classmates who are also scholarship recipients.) Several of our supporters and staff met her while on an August Insight Trip to India, and she clearly stole their hearts. Adele Nandan, director of our International Education department, says, “Whenever I look at this picture, Ramya makes me smile. She is so excited to share her dreams with us when she grows up.”

At Opportunity, we’re inspired by the hopes of little girls around the world, who dare to dream about achieving their goals and receiving an education, so that they can have a voice and have choices that their parents never had. That’s the significance of the International Day of the Girl. And it’s why we’re motivated to empower girls.

Episode 1 (Original Airdate: Monday, October 1)

Watch Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity- EP 1 on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

Episode 2 (Original Airdate: Tuesday, October 2)

Watch Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity- EP 2 on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.