Two Rotarians from Berkshire visited Opportunity Malawi recently to see first-hand the difference local Rotary Club support is making. 

Donations from Rotary Clubs in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire for Opportunity Trust Groups have totalled £45,000 to date. 



“We were so impressed by the fantastic work Opportunity International Bank of Malawi are doing,” says John Stafford of Burnham Beeches Rotary Club, “People in Malawi, like elsewhere in the world, just want the opportunity to be self sufficient and to care for their families."

"Without savings accounts and loans – things we take for granted in the UK – they don’t have that opportunity. They don’t want charity – they just want the chance. And these small loans give them the chance to break out of poverty”.

John Stafford and Nick Teale spent a week, hosted by Opportunity International Bank of Malawi (OIBM), travelling the rural Central Region.
They met many clients who have received small loans as well as training in basic business skills, leadership and health including HIV/AIDS awareness. This helps them expand their small businesses in order to work themselves out of poverty and restore dignity and hope.

Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world and, with no proof of identity or collateral, only a small fraction of the working poor are able to open bank savings accounts and the availability of loans for the majority is a distant dream.

However OIBM, by applying modern high tech banking facilities such as biometric ATM cards, has enabled people living in poverty to open savings accounts for the first time in their lives.

Coming together in groups of up to 10 (“Trust Groups”), where they cross guarantee each others loans, they take out very small loans – starting at around £20 – to grow their businesses and to increase self sufficiency.

The money raised by the Rotary Clubs has been channelled into providing small loans in the Kasungu area and John and Nick were able to meet the recipients and see for themselves how their lives have been changed.

“On our visit we were able to see for ourselves the enormous transformation the loans have had on peoples’ lives," says John.

"Many of these are women for whom the loans have empowered them to take control of their lives and build their self respect and standing within their communities”.

Opportunity International is a charity with a difference. Instead of giving grants, the charity gives small loans: instead of giving a ‘hand-out’ it gives the poor a ‘hand-up’; rather than creating a culture of dependency, it encourages individual entrepreneurship.