Giving the poor access to affordable financial services enables them to seize livelihood opportunities, manage cash flow spikes, and mitigate risks.
The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Muhammad Yunus, pioneered the concepts of microcredit and microfinance, founding the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
By July 2007, Grameen had issued US$6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers
Providing small loans and other services to families in Asia to allow them to start or build small businesses, empowering them to leave poverty behind.
Yunus announced that he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million (equivalent to $2.12 million in 2023) award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor; while the rest would go towards establishing the Yunus Science and Technology University in his home district as well as setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh.
Securing a loan in 1976 from the government Janata Bank to lend to the poor in Jobra- then loans from other banks for its projects- the operation as a full-fledged bank for poor Bangladeshis was founded in 1983 and was renamed Grameen Bank (“Village Bank”).
The loans are given to entrepreneurs who are too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of “solidarity groups”. These small informal groups apply together for loans and their members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another’s efforts at economic self-advancement.
Opportunity International Australia is part of the global Opportunity Network, a leading provider and pioneer of socially-focused microfinance, helping you provide a hand up to millions of families in more than 20 countries around the world.
Through their global network, they have spurred on healthier communities by training health leaders in India, Indonesia, Nepal and Bangladesh who educate communities with basic health practices that will save lives, including health awareness education.
They have also delivered technical assistance to microfinance operators in India, Indonesia and Pakistan to provide education finance (both school fee and school improvement finance) to help children to go to school and gain an education and for schools to improve the quality of that education.
Opportunity helped train PeaceMakers to reduce domestic violence against women in India through support, counselling and education, and protect vulnerable communities by teaching girls at risk and their families how to identify and avoid human trafficking situations.
Opportunity enhanced the impact of its programs through social performance management ( SPM ), including automating data management tasks to lower the barriers for program partners to adopt measurement of their activities.
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