Opportunity International Australia Blog

What a day Friday was. On the road at 7am for four hours, to attend an expo in a remote village where 1,000 female clients of our microfinance partner in Chennai, GO Finance, were meeting. It didn’t disappoint. The morning featured speeches from advocates for women’s rights, like a young local female police chief who encouraged the women to take all the opportunities they are given.

Microfinance itself is a powerful tool for poverty alleviation. Just as powerful is the sense of community it generates amongst women and the empowerment and solidarity they can achieve as a group through it.

You didn’t have to speak a word of the local language (my Tamil is a bit rusty I must admit) to feel the energy, passion and pride in the room. I also often forget to think about the staff at our partner microfinance institutions. We spent time with the staff of two branches at the expo and they spoke about the massively positive change working for GO Finance has made in their lives. One of them started to get quite emotional when talking about how GO Finance had changed their circumstances. These are incredible people who work tirelessly to serve the clients. We should honour them more.

Staff from GO Finance

Stephen Penny
Chief Financial Officer
Opportunity International Australia

My week in India is drawing to an end and tonight I head to Jakarta.

It’s been busy, busy and I’m happy with what’s been achieved. Now I have a better understanding of the issues facing our partners in Chennai (GO Finance) and Mumbai (Annapurna Parivar). The meetings with Healing Fields and Axis Bank were special because we can see how our clients – those people in poverty we serve, can benefit. And it was good to make a new friend in Emily of Innovaid. There was also a Board meeting, multiple discussions on capital raising, partner performance, partner issues and ways we can help.

I love India. I love its people, its vibrancy, its colour, its rawness. It was the jewel in the Empire. But most of all I love the opportunity to serve here, to leave an impact for good. Frederick Buechner said “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet”. (Thanks John!) I feel that way about India.

Many in the Opportunity family have had the pleasure of meeting two key people in Opportunity’s program in India; KC Ranjani (Managing Director) and Saneesh Singh (Executive Director – Investments). Less well known is the third member of the key leadership team, the CFO, Monty Sen. They are all wonderful people, serving with passion and high capability. Monty’s the handsome, eligible bachelor in the team. So, after work, what does he get up to?

Monty spends some of his weekends at Deepashram. Run by the Brothers of Charity, Deepashram cares for mentally and physically challenged young men. If it was important to Monty then I wanted to see it. Opened by Mother Teresa in 1995, it currently looks after 43 people. We were met by Father Timothy, a gentle German who has committed to working here. He faces great challenges and has few resources, although he is clearly grateful of the professional and financial assistance Monty (and now many of Monty’s friends) are making. But he’s even more impressed that Monty is known and looked up to by those living at Deepashram.

This servant approach is shown by so many of Opportunity’s staff and wider family. I’ve seen it in our staff in Australia, those who serve in the Philippines and in Indonesia and those from other parts of the globe.

Tonight I leave India. Tomorrow it’s Indonesia. There’s so much we can do in that country. I can’t wait.

Robert Dunn
CEO
Opportunity International Australia

It looked like a typical day for me in India. Ranjani, Director of Opportunity’s Indian Subsidiary, Dia Vikas had arranged a string of meetings including  breakfast, lunch and dinner meetings and others in between. Am I getting too old for this unrelenting pace? Still, being presented with a cream birthday cake at breakfast with typical Indian pomp and ceremony energised me for the day.

The breakfast meeting was with one of our key advisors in matters regulatory, Nandan Singh Bisht and our CFO in India, Monty Sen. They’ve been reviewing Ranjani’s plans for a web campaign to inspire thousands of citizens to encourage the central government to put and pass its draft Microfinance Bill. The draft bill is a good step forward but it’s nothing if it remains a draft. And in India that’s not unusual. Read about the bill at http://www.opportunity.org.au/Latest-News/New-bill-gives-clarity-and-confidence-to-Indian-mi.aspx

After breakfast, we met with Sam Chander, the new MD of our microfinance partner in Chennai, GO Finance. Sam dressed up for the meeting; he normally dresses to fit in with the people in poverty he serves. He has spent considerable time with them, understanding their needs. There’s much I like about Sam. There have been times where he’s taken the tough option, acted in accordance with the organisation’s high values and paid a financial price. He’s building a quality organisation that is truly serving the poor in Chennai.

Next was a meeting with the tireless Mukti Bosco, the head of Healing Fields. This great organisation helps make health care affordable and accessible to the marginalised in India. One way is to train local people in poor, rural areas to be community health leaders. They then bring basic health education to the people in their own communities. Microfinance organisations are great distribution platforms for such a service and Healing Fields works with two of our key partners in the north of India, Cashpor and RRDC.

Often we think of health insurance as the answer to affordable healthcare. But insurance doesn't cover outpatient care – the vast majority of health interventions. Typically the poor will pay for a consultancy ($1) but when facing a prescription bill of $5 to $20 they will hand what they have to the pharmacist and say, “Just give me what this will pay for“. So they only take part of a course of antibiotics and they often get sicker. Microfinance coupled with health training can address that by giving specific small loans tailored to the cost of all the medicines prescribed.

We’re not experts in health but Healing Fields is. Together we’re planning ways of making healthcare more accessible and affordable for the poor.

We ended the day with Nandan and over dinner considered ways to get more funds into the sector. It needs it. We didn’t need another birthday cake. But you don’t want to be rude. This was anything but a typical day in India.

Robert Dunn
CEO
Opportunity International Australia

Birthday greetings in India