SDG #1 No Poverty

Last week I began this blog series by introducing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and reflecting on how the work of Opportunity International Canada intersects with some of those goals. In this week’s blog, I will dig into the first SDG – No Poverty.

This goal is captured in the overall vision of Opportunity International Canada: “Our vision is a world in which all people have the opportunity to achieve a life free from poverty, with dignity and purpose.”  This is our “why”.  

The overall vision of Opportunity International Canada: “Our vision is a world in which all people have the opportunity to achieve a life free from poverty, with dignity and purpose.”

We begin with a firm conviction of the dignity of every human life and an understanding that injustice around global poverty undermines that very dignity. Hundreds of millions of people are trapped in the grinding and dehumanizing indignity of inter-generational poverty.  

In August 2019, I visited Haiti with my German and American colleagues. I was there to decide if Opportunity Canada would join a program led by Opportunity Germany. In Creole, the program is called Chemin Lavi Miyò which translates in English to Pathway to a Better Life. The work is carried out by a local Partner, an agency called FONKOZE.

The FONKOZE team travel to the poorest regions seeking out women on the fringes, marginalized, with dependent children and no source of income. Their home is often a leaky dilapidated shack with no access to clean water and sanitation. There isn’t enough food to eat and they can’t afford to send their kids to school. It is a place with very little dignity and hope.

The team befriends them and invites them on an 18-month journey of transformation. Each woman joins a cohort of 50 women and each cohort is assigned a Case Manager. The group is provided with intensive training at the start and the Case Manager meets each woman one-on-one for 30 minutes every week. 

They are provided with materials to add a non-leaky roof to the house, materials to build a latrine, and a water filter. They are also provided with assets to help kick-start a sustainable livelihood that could generate the regular income they need to break the cycle of poverty. The weekly training and mentoring covers topics such as the health benefits of clean water and sanitation, the importance of education, and financial literacy around enterprise development, savings, and debt avoidance. There is a graduation ceremony after 18 months.

I met several women at various stages of the program – some just starting out, some part way through and others who had graduated. They were involved in a broad range of enterprise initiatives from selling rice, wheat, or cooking oil in the local market to raising chickens, ducks, or goats. They were building sustainable livelihoods and knew they could provide for their kids.  

Each woman I met had a distinct look of hope in her eyes. It was striking to think that only months earlier these women had been completely marginalized. The transformation was not merely economic, as important as that is. The transformation was in their confidence and the skills they had acquired. They took it from there.

Elda emerged from the field covered in the dust from planting and weeding. Already a graduate of the program, she told us her story. Her husband had kicked her and her two toddlers out of the house six years earlier, telling her she was useless. She ended up in a shack near her mom’s place, with no future, no income, and barely making it day to day. 

She was invited to join the program, and when we met her four years later, she had bought her own land where she planted crops and harvested avocadoes. She makes a local organic health drink from a special bark she sources, selling out the inventory every Thursday at the local market. She also owns pigs, chickens, a goat, and a couple of cows.

My colleague Atul Tandon, the CEO of Opportunity International US told her, “We wouldn’t have made it in your shoes.” She thought for a second and responded, “That’s not true…all you need is a plan and then to stick to it.” We left that meeting incredibly inspired.

This work with clients in extreme poverty such as in Haiti and elsewhere is just one example of how Opportunity International Canada works to end poverty,

We also engage the working poor, often day labourers who eat from what little they earn each day, helping them to acquire a sustainable livelihood where they can increase their income through their own entrepreneurialism. 

And we help clients with such microenterprises to grow their business and in the process create jobs for their neighbours – because not everyone is an entrepreneur, but everyone needs a job.

Through financial inclusion, training, and support, Opportunity International Canada helps clients acquire a sustainable livelihood so they can break the cycle of inter-generational poverty. This is one of the most dignified, transformative, and sustainable pathways out of poverty.

This is one of the most dignified, transformative, and sustainable pathways out of poverty.

SDG #1 is No Poverty and over the past 50 years, Opportunity International has helped end poverty for millions of clients. However, hundreds of millions remain trapped in the grinding dehumanizing injustice of global poverty. We have the means to meet this goal – let’s work together and do it!