HOMESEARCHNEWS + PRESS

Recent Media Exposure

For an overview of Opportunity, read our current Fact Sheet.

Siblings to fund overseas project
July 3, 2010  Calgary Herald

Small-scale finance combined with big-time effort has paid off for a Calgary family that will travel this summer to Colombia with a stack of cash that will fund microfinance projects in the Latin American nation.

The brother-sister duo of Rachel, 22, and Jeremy Bryant, 20, staged a fundraiser here in Calgary in June that raised $34,500 for Opportunity International Canada, an organization that provides micro-loans for clients in developing countries. Those loans, usually worth about $100 each, can be enough to allow budding entrepreneurs to buy what they need to start businesses they can leverage into better lives for themselves... (Read More)

Youth given chance to create own micro-enterprise
April 9, 2010  ChristianWeek

Toronto, ON— Opportunity International Canada is giving young adults the chance to change the world with $100.

Through the Micromax challenge, teams are given a short-term loan to use for fundraising. Those with the best fundraising project win a trip to Colombia to witness the organization's micro-financing work firsthand.

"We're giving people in Canada a small taste of what it's like to have a very limited amount of resources and to take that and turn it into something a lot larger," says Adele Madonia, who coordinates Opportunity International's Young Ambassadors for Opportunity program... (Read More)


High-tech banking goes to the ends of earth
February 25, 2010   The Vancouver Sun

How do you get basic bank services -- micro loans or a safe place for tiny savings -- to people living in truly poor parts of the world?

In rural Malawi, the 11th-poorest country on earth, and in Ghana, the 29th-poorest, the answer is high-tech. They can bank by ATM, or even cellphone transfers.

Opportunity International, a global non-profit with deep Canadian roots, has been pioneering many of these techniques with some success -- 250,000 clients to date, mostly in rural Malawi.

Now the organization is to get a $16-million grant, over five years, from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and MasterCard Foundation. This will let it expand its Malawi base as well as extend into Ghana and, eventually, Mozambique, Rwanda and Uganda... (Read More)


Planting seeds to outgrow poverty
November 28, 2009  Winnipeg Free Press

You give a donation to most charities, they use it right away on their work.

Give a donation to Opportunity International Canada (OIC) and your money will keep coming back like a boomerang to help people create and expand businesses in developing countries over and over.

That's because, unlike most help organizations, OIC gives out your money as a microloan. (Read More)


Paula Curtis: Promoting 21st-Century philanthropy
August 1, 2009  ChristianWeek

..."Microfinance is sustainable philanthropy," says Curtis. "Rather than creating dependencies on hand-outs, microfinance enables people to build up their own incomes and find their way out of poverty with dignity." (Read More)


'Matching challenge' raises more for Africa
October 25, 2008  Globe and Mail

A couple of years ago, Rebecca Horwood read a newspaper article about Opportunity International, a non-profit agency that specializes in offering micro loans, sometimes as little as $50, and other financial services to poor entrepreneurs to help them expand their businesses.

Ms. Horwood mentioned the article to her husband, John, who was mildly interested.

A few months later, Mr. Horwood happened to meet Gary Walsh, the organization's president. After learning more about the group's work, he became equally intrigued... (Read More)


Microfinance has macro impact
June 1, 2008  The Province

It's early afternoon in the hazy Mozambican capital of Maputo and the Opportunity International bank should be "aberto" for business. But it's locked tight.

The closure goes against the spirit of this Canadian-funded microfinance bank, which provides credit, insurance and services to the poor in a country where 36 per cent of residents live on less than $1 a day.

But it's necessary today. Outside the Banco Oportunidade de Mocambique, rioters block the streets, hitting cars with sticks, throwing stones, lighting tire fires.

Frightened tellers peer out windows; the CEO surveys the violence from the roof. Shots ring out. Everyone jumps. Armed riot police head in to tame the protest, which ignited after bus-fare increases... (Read More)
A Client Story