$65 to Change the World

Talk about having a global impact! Opportunity International has created more than 20 million jobs worldwide. Can you give us a couple of examples of individuals who have helped and how you were able to help them get out of poverty?

Thanks for asking, Thuy. Let me give you two examples from two different parts of the world. So the first, this is not a person I've met, but literally our first client, a gentlemen called Carlos Moreno and our founder at that time Al Whittaker, finds Carlos selling spices, raw spices, on a street in Cali, Colombia. Cali was the drug cartel capital of the world at that time, a backwaters place. And he's with a friend of his and he and his wife are visiting. And Al's a businessman, he goes, "How do we help this guy? You know, I'm a businessman. Of course, this guy's running a business. How do I help his business grow? What can I do?" So he and Ralph, I'll call him now our first loan officer, get hold of this guy, Carlos, and ask him what help he needs. The guy says, well, I want to buy a spice grinder. 65 dollar loan to by a spice grinder. He goes from selling raw spices to now selling ground spices, increases the number from four to, what, 50, in about six monthÕs time. Well, 10 years later, Carlos has grown that little roadside stall that he had to two stores and 57 employees.

Oh, my goodness. All from a 65 dollar loan?

All from a 65 dollar loan. And so now I'll fast forward. Linda, the baker, one of you know, one of my most favorite people today. I met Linda at her, I wouldn't even call it a bakery, this is a manufacturing and a factory in in a small little shed outside Accra in Ghana, just about a year and a half back. So when I met her, she is this tall status woman. She came and give me a big hug and showed me this bread factory that she was running. That bread factory was producing about six thousand loaves of bread a day. And it's got big bread. I think each loaf must be a pound and a half. I can't even put my hand around. She challenged me. It says Linda's bakery. She had started about six years back, seven years back, on a 200 dollar loan to buy her first oven, seven years later, that lady has got a factory which has got 47 employees. 47 employees. She not only, you know, employs them, she's built a dormitory where they sleep and they live and they get fed for nothing. Why? I said, why do you do that? She said, well, these are all people who are living on the street. They have no means to earn a living. I can give them a job.