Planting seeds to outgrow poverty

Winnipeg Free Press , November 28th, 2009

You give a donation to most charities, they use it right away on their work.

Give a donation to Opportunity International Canada (OIC) and your money will keep coming back like a boomerang to help people create and expand businesses in developing countries over and over.

That's because, unlike most help organizations, OIC gives out your money as a microloan.

Then, while the recipient is working on their business, they begin paying back the loan along with interest. The money is then loaned out to someone else.

That's something that appeals to Winnipeggers Herb and Erna Buller.

The Bullers have been supporting the organization for about five years, since learning about it from a friend's relative.

"My wife and I were familiar with microfinance," Herb said.

"We really like the organization because they meet with the people who get the loans on a weekly basis. We also like that most of the people helped are women with young children.

"And the money we've given keeps being used again and again."

Opportunity International (OI), a Christian microenterprise development organization, began in 1971 when Al Whittaker, the president of Bristol-Myers International, began the first Opportunity program in Latin America when people told him "We need work. With jobs we will solve our own problems."

Published in Winnipeg Free Press on November 28th, 2009