Opportunity Fund for Developing Countries

EMPOWER WOMEN
Training and microcredit

- walking in the steps of Mohammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner

OFDC believes every women deserves the right for her voice to be heard.

Women in developing countries, traditionally own no property, have not had the opportunity to go to school, lack basic health knowledge and are forced into child marriages.

Your OFDC donation sponsors women's training, creating a forum for solidarity and strength, giving women a voice.

Classes are taught by local instructors in basic health, family planning, HIV/AIDS awareness and women's rights according to the law of their country.

Your OFDC donation established microcredit loan projects in Bolivia, Kenya and Nepal. Loans are used to buy seed to grow and sell vegetables, purchase sewing machines for seamstress co-ops, purchase livestock to sell the offspring, and buy food items in bulk to sell in smaller quantities at a profit.

Women in Developing Countries:

traditionally own no property
are generally illiterate
lack basic health knowledge

Coupled with poverty, violence against women thrives in these conditions. When women are given a voice from knowledge gained in training and, with peer support:

women's status advances and they are more involved in community decision making
their families' diet and health improves
they have fewer births
they send their children to school in greater numbers

Since 1999:

800 microcredit loans ranging from $10 to $100 have been given to poor women - 70% of whom are grandmothers raising their grandchildren due to parental deaths from AIDS. These loans empower women through micro-enterprise income generating projects.
2,500 women have attended basic health, family planning and HIV/AIDS awareness training
4,500 women have received basic literacy and simple book keeping classes
3 bicycles have been donated so trainers can reach very remote villages for trainings