Clients and countries
Opportunity International provides small loans, savings, insurance and business training to poor people in 24 countries worldwide. Opportunity UK is currently raising funds to help develop microfinance in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Ghana.
Mozambique
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Case Study: Lucas’s Story
Sixteen years ago, Lucas’s country was devastated by civil war and fertile land lay untended. Today, with Opportunity’s help, he’s reaping a harvest.
Trapped in the past
Civil war and poverty are inextricably linked. One Opportunity client, Lucas, remembers how rebel activity prevented his community from leaving the safety of the village to cultivate the surrounding land. “During the war I couldn’t implement anything,” he recalls.
Trust in the present
But things have changed now. Lucas’s two-acre plot produces cabbages, onions and tomatoes. Not only is it safe to farm but Opportunity’s mobile bank is bringing financial services to people in his community. It is making a tremendous difference. Before, a trip to the bank meant a costly 45km trek to Chimoio – the nearest town.
Lucas’s loans from Opportunity have allowed him to increase his crop, invest in chickens and buy a small pump to irrigate his field from a nearby stream. Now his children are in school and he is supporting two brothers though university.
In fact, the whole community is being affected as he also employs four people and sells his crop at lower rates to other distributors so that they can earn money.
Transforming the future
Lucas’s plot lies amid uncultivated land and he dreams of being able to develop this growing more produce, buying a truck and hiring more people.
Opportunity UK Ambassador Mark Preston visited our work in Mozambique and said, “It’s a country which has been really riddled by war and has become impoverished. Yet the land can support agriculture. It can really help the country get back on its feet. Microfinance is, in my view, the tool that can make that happen.”
According to Opportunity’s Wesley Jordan, “Mozambique is one of the fastest growing economies in southern Africa. But even with that recent economic growth it’s still one of the poorest countries in the world.”
“Opportunity is here to help in that transformation as Mozambique continues to grow and develop its natural resources and its human resources.”