In the 21st century, I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion.
– Kofi Anan
This is my fifth and final entry in this Listening and Learning series as the new CEO of Opportunity International Canada. I’ll always commit to listen and learn, but after 6 months in the role I can’t get away with “new” anymore.
The idea that has most captivated me about microfinance — along with its robust sustainability and power to transform people, families and communities — is its inherent dignity.
The vision of Opportunity is a world in which all people have the opportunity to achieve a life free from poverty, with dignity and purpose (emphasis mine).
I am captivated by that word dignity.
The wonderful quote above by Kofi Annan speaks of the dignity of every human life, but I fear it’s all too easy to be glib about this.
We may say that every life has dignity, but the inherent dignity of a life is often masked – by abuse, by hatred, by indifference, by injustice — and by grinding systemic poverty in which some of the above miseries often play a role.
Dignity is hidden when a child can’t get an education because her parents can’t afford tuition or because “girls don’t need an education” or because the local school is overcrowded and can’t afford teachers and curriculum.
Dignity is masked when a mother can only manage to scrape together five or six skimpy meals each week.
Dignity is in short supply when a father can’t find reliable work and must accept gifts from charity and strangers to clothe his family.
Where is dignity when home is a dirt floor and a leaky roof with no readily available source of clean water?
It is hard to find any dignity when a child works 12 or more hours a day for six or seven days a week to pay his family’s debt to a loan shark, in a never-ending cycle of debt and poverty.
I could go on. In each of the above, there is profound dignity in the hearts and lives of each involved, regardless of their circumstances, but it is masked from us.
It is also easy to underestimate the transformative power of an opportunity.
After all, what possible difference could be made by a $10 loan, extended to a woman with little education, no equity, no savings, no status and no power?
Kofi Annan was Ghanaian, which reminded me of a story that my colleague Jannalee Anderson relayed about Zinabu, a microfinance client in Ghana.
“Zinabu recently addressed an audience of 60 emerging women entrepreneurs in Ghana with the theme of ‘I did it; you can do it too.’ When she was handed the microphone to present, she stayed seated as she is physically challenged and cannot stand or walk without extreme discomfort. But attention to her pain or her unorthodox way of presenting was very quickly displaced by her tremendous story of tenacity and her exuding ‘can do’ attitude.”
“Zinabu became a microfinance client 17 years ago, with her first loan equivalent to $10 Canadian. She started out selling drinks and biscuits in the market. As her business grew, she looked for ways that she could stay closer to home (to accommodate her disability) and began a cooking / catering business. This eventually grew into a restaurant. Seven years ago, she made the leap from owning a restaurant to building and owning a guest house. Her most recent loan, three years ago, was for $7,600 Canadian. Today, she is no longer a loan client but remains a savings client.”
“If the story were to stop here it would already be deeply inspiring. However, Zinabu’s guesthouse has 17 rooms and she is in the process of building two more buildings which will accommodate nine more rooms. Given her physical challenges, she has a special consideration for other vulnerable people. She employs 35 people, all of whom are visually impaired or mute. Zinabu has battled and escaped poverty herself and is now equipping others to do the same, with dignity and hope.”
Dignity resonates throughout this story – her simple yet determined start, her consistent growth, her success, her confidence as a business leader inspiring a room full of women entrepreneurs, and the dignity of a job for 35 people who would typically be passed over and marginalized.
There are many such stories that illustrate the power of an opportunity to transform an individual, a family, and even an entire community.
However, I suggest the most profound transformation began with that $10 loan.
Until a Loan Officer found her, Zinabu had little prospect of earning a sustainable living, let alone providing work for 35 others with a disability.
A bank wouldn’t trust her with a loan because she had no equity, no education, no power, and no position in society.
Loan sharks would happily exploit her vulnerability with expensive loans, knowing they would eventually own her or her kids in a vicious cycle of debt and poverty.
A well-intentioned charity might have helped feed her family for a few days, but it can be humiliating to depend on strangers for your well-being and it certainly is not sustainable.
But, that simple $10 loan was a highly dignified transaction between business partners. It wasn’t a hand up, which suggests the lender is somehow above the borrower, but rather it was a handshake between equals.
And in that moment dignity was conferred and Zinabu’s whole view of herself was transformed. She knew exactly how to put that small loan to work as she began to slowly build a business.
That is the transforming power of an opportunity…and that is dignity.
Our partner in the Dominican Republic, Coop ASPIRE, has launched an initiative called “Through Inclusion We Grow” in partnership with Opportunity International Canada and inspired by some very passionate Opportunity supporters. The idea of inclusion is to help people who are often overlooked and marginalized to have the opportunity of a better life.
I saw this lived out in a school inclusion program for kids with physical, emotional and learning challenges. And I saw it demonstrated in a training and leasing program for women trapped at the bottom of the economic ladder.
When a family in poverty has a child with a disability, there are few resources available to help. Both parents usually need to work just to hold things together, and I’ve heard very sad stories of kids being locked in a room or tied to a bed during the day while the parents are away.
ASPIRE provides inclusion training to school administrators, teachers and parents. It provides affordable loans to schools to add infrastructure such as therapy rooms and to hire therapeutic staff, with the goal of a 25% inclusion rate — one in four kids in the school with a disability. And ASPIRE provides scholarships so that parents can afford to send their kids to school.
I visited five schools where this program is in effect and was deeply moved to see the very natural integration. It’s an early but fast-growing program and there are already dozens of stories of these kids achieving developmental goals that were once thought unattainable. Dignity!
I also met a few women clients in rough neighborhoods who lived near the bottom of the economic ladder. With no education and no jobs there are few prospects. ASPIRE’s social workers find these women and invite them to a training program that takes 12 hours over a number of weeks. The training includes basic life skills, knowing your rights, health and safety issues, and financial literacy.
When they complete the course, a Relationship Officer works with them to identify a potential microenterprise. Needed start-up equipment is provided under an affordable lease, paid out of the business revenue. If the business thrives, they eventually own the equipment. If it fails, they simply return the equipment without a loan over their head and begin to explore other options.
I have previously written about two women in Santo Domingo who were graduates of this program. Altagracia runs a Hair Salon in her home and has helped her son start a Barber Shop. Doris has an upholstery business that is so successful she hired her son and daughter-in-law after just one year.
Both of these women emerged as business leaders and I saw the light of hope and dignity in their eyes. Poverty, marginalization and lack of opportunity can mask the inherent dignity is that present if you look for it.
In some places such as sub-Saharan Africa there are millions of children without access to a quality education. Governments simply don’t have the funds to provide it. Parents for the most part want to see their kids educated. Without an education it is very hard to break generational cycles of poverty.
There are thousands of small private schools desperately trying to fill the gap, but they lack the resources to create enough spaces, to hire enough teachers, to provide decent curriculum and to effectively measure the quality of the education.
Opportunity International has launched an effective dual program called EduFinance and EduQuality to address this.
Under the EduFinance program, schools are partnered with other schools in the region in a supportive cluster where they receive training on how to effectively operate a school, including financial sustainability. They have access to affordable loans to add classrooms, build gender-separate bathrooms and hire teachers. This allows them to accept more students with the increased tuition revenue.
Furthermore, parents in the community who operate a microenterprise qualify for affordable short-term tuition loans so their kids can stay in school during low income periods, such as winter for farmers.
The EduQuality program is a data-driven process where school administrators assess the performance of the schools under more than 30 parameters and tracked year after year.
Although running for only a few short years, already more than three million kids have access to an education that was previously unavailable. There are countless stories of schools exceeding all expectations for performance and quality, some gaining national attention.
I am inspired by the dignity of this program. The school owners, often at great difficulty, operated the schools for years with a personal commitment to educate the local kids. The parents often made personal sacrifices to get their kids in school so they could see a better life. The kids work hard to learn and will emerge as some of the great future leaders in Africa.
Human lives have inherent dignity conferred on them by their Creator. I am inspired by the ability of something as simple as microfinance to have such a profound impact in unmasking that dignity through the power of an opportunity.