This International Women’s Day: Invest in Her, Accelerate Change.

One of my favourite things about intentionally investing in women is that, in almost all cases, when they rise, they bring a whole lot of others along
with them.

Take Aleliada. She was born into extreme poverty in Cartagena, Colombia. Encouraged to be part of an Opportunity Savings Group, she developed into a sharp businesswoman and now supports her own family by selling frozen meat. But that’s not all Aleliada did. As soon as she intuited the skills she was learning had the potential to change everything, she brought her son Elias to the weekly Savings Group meetings. Week after week, he observed his mom and the other women saving, investing, and growing their businesses. Now, as a young adult, Elias still attends the meetings – only he’s the group Secretary and has his own business selling clothes online, which supports his university education.

Last November, I was with a group of supporters in Colombia to witness the impact of our work. One of the staff told us that it usually takes seven generations to break the cycle of poverty – but if an investment is made in women’s education, training, and small businesses, the cycle can be broken in one or two. Talk about accelerating change!

97% of Opportunity clients are women. Every time I visit our programs, I meet countless women who, with training, encouragement, and small business loans, are directing their profits toward educating their children, providing jobs for family members and neighbours, and bettering their communities. This cumulative impact, one woman at a time, across hundreds of small communities, is how Opportunity International is, with great deliberateness, breaking the bonds of generational poverty.

I met Heidy in Honduras last March. Heidy started working in a beauty parlour and, after receiving training and a loan from Opportunity, set up her own beauty salon in her home. Today, she works out of a rented space and employs two other women in the Bella Studio Salon. “When I first opened, I had zero customers the first week,” she says, “but my mom has always taught me to keep going!” Heidy now has so many customers she has hired two women to help her.

One of every three women globally — or 1.1 billion — is excluded from the formal financial system. In other words, poor women don’t get business loans. Despite running small home stores, home tailor shops, home restaurants, feeding and keeping up their households and a myriad of other unpaid tasks, women do NOT have equal access to financial services.

Women living in extreme poverty are unlikely to have a bank account. They are forced to hide their money in their home and rely on loan sharks to meet their financial needs. Loan sharks charge 28% interest per DAY. This makes women vulnerable to loss, theft, and exploitation and reinforces the cycle of poverty.

Opportunity seeks to break that cycle by providing financial inclusion – with dignity. We invest in women so they can access social, educational, and economic opportunities. Financial inclusion also means ensuring women have access to savings and insurance and the training and education to use these services wisely.

International Women’s Day is important for me because of my work – but also because it is my mom’s birthday. Mom was born into poverty in Canada, and when she worked her way out of that cycle of poverty, she brought a whole lot of others along with her. Mom was incredibly generous with her time and resources. As a social worker, she worked tirelessly, providing innovative programming for new immigrant women and their children. Mom was also deeply involved as a volunteer in a supportive home for young moms and an organization helping homeless youth. She organized our family’s participation in medical projects to the Dominican Republic and Mexico, which has shaped my entire life and career path. I celebrate her example and her influence every day.

For me, International Women’s Day is a reminder that women all over the world want the same things: good health, a loving community, and a hopeful future for our families.

I love that my work with Opportunity invests in women so they can have hope.

So they can dream.

So they can have a choice.

So they can accelerate the change they are so adept at bringing to everyone around them.

Join me in helping them rise, and together, we can celebrate as they bring whole communities with them. Click to learn more.