Extended Community: Tiny Investments, Huge Returns

SL nonprofit's microloans help women bring home the basics

Five years ago, Nia Sherar founded the Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries (OFDC) in Salt Lake City. A computer programmer for 20 years, Nia traveled extensively during her vacation time, meeting friends and penpals in Kenya, Nepal and Guatemala, and recalling her first childhood dream - a desire to go to Africa to help plant corn. Through firsthand experience and research, she discovered that women in developing countries are often the heart and center of their villages. They do intensive labor, cooking, cleaning, taking care of their children and trying to keep them in school. Many women are illiterate; they can't even write their own names.

So Nia began her soul's work, opening a channel for basic health care, education and business opportunities for women in need. OFDC now distributes microcredit loans to women in rural areas.

Nia started by asking her friends and penpals in developing countries to become administrators for their own villages, knowing that she couldn't be there all the time to make sure funds are distributed properly. The administrators volunteer their time, making sure that money coming from OFDC is given only to those in need, and only to projects warranting funds. Nia also found four partners in Utah to be on OFDC's board of trustees. Project managers Glenn Call, Dr. Wilma Johnson, Boyd Tangren, and Edith Zimmer all agreed to volunteer their time to help solicit funds, oversee projects and write grant proposals.

The microloan concept was developed by Mohammed Yunus 20 years ago in Bangladesh. Primarily for underprivileged women, the loans provide them a way to take care of their families. For instance, $10 buys a woman in Kenya a goat to milk and to breed; $50 buys corn seed to plant, harvest and sell at a profit. The women usually form groups of four or five to work and pay off the loans quickly. No woman in the group may receive another loan until the first is paid.

OFDC helps people in remote rural areas in Bolivia, Guatemala, Kenya, Malawi and Nepal where there is no running water, electricity or heat. Nia says OFDC funds provide simple first steps to reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, and promote responsible reproduction choices. Many of the women OFDC helps work extremely hard for their opportunities. For instance, in Nepal, Nia walked six hours to market with the women to buy small pigs that would later be carried home and fattened up to sell. OFDC also provides funds for basic necessities such as mosquito nets to fight malaria and supplies to build latrines. In Kenya, children must wear uniforms to attend school, so OFDC provides children in need with uniforms.

So far, OFDC has helped 1,300 children attend school, and has taught 1,400 women about AIDS awareness, basic health, women's rights and bookkeeping. They have given microcredit loans to 400 women. Nia also gives slide show presentations to schools and organizations in Utah who would like to know more about the countries she visits. She calls her presentations a cultural exchange, and says, "I guess what I have learned, and why I call it a cultural exchange, is that there are a lot of good people in the world. We hear about suicide bombers and violence, and it exists; but, the stories that are not told are those of love and kindness."

OFDC is a 501(c) nonprofit organization. To donate, send a check to: OFDC, 829 5th Ave., SLC, UT 84103. You will receive a receipt for tax purposes.

For more info on OFDC, tel. 596-0326 or visit www.ofdc.org.