I was invited to a dinner this past Saturday hosted by Opportunity International. Their tag line is, "Giving the Poor a Working Chance." They are the pioneers in what is called microfinancing, which just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Basically they set up a trust bank and provide loans to people in poor countries to start their own business. The stories they told of the success were amazing. One was from a $100 loan to start a sewing business, a lady now owns a sewing company, a taxi company and a cattle farm, all of which now employs several hundred people in her community. All that from just $100!!!
Our missions ministry at Frontline, Global Impact, has partnered with Opportunity with a goal to fund 5 trust banks. You can read about that here and hopefully if you feel so led, help the drive. I'll say more about this later, but I'm excited about being asked to lead a trip next summer to Africa where we will be able to see first hand the impact of microfinancing.
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4 comments:
How exciting!!
I am reading about these types of loans in the book "Rich Christians in an age of Hunger" by Ron Sider. He told amazing stories about them as well. They really are such little money to us but changes their lives forever! We would love to be involved with something like that. I will read your links and see what we can do. Thanks for the info.
I gave you a shout out over at my blog.
Thanks Feather!!
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