Give Opportunity to the DR Congo

Opportunity Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) celebrated its grand opening on May 19th in the capital city of Kinshasa. Since Opportunity International‘s arrival in the DRC, we’ve seen marked changes in the lives of the Congolese people. More than 690 Opportunity DRC clients have already received loans to grow their businesses. Two-thirds of our loan recipients are women and the average loan is around $190. One of the first microfinance institutions to use biometric fingerprint technology in the Congo, Opportunity enables clients who don’t have formal identification to securely access their financial information.

Currently, Opportunity DRC has a staff of 32–11 of whom are loan officers. The staff, comprised mostly of university graduates, is subjected to a rigorous recruitment process. Recently, five women graduated from the Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women Emerging Leaders Program. This program provided the women with the knowledge and skills they needed to become training managers.

Since launching our operations, Opportunity DRC has distributed hundreds of loans and has provided in-depth financial training along with each one. In the future, Opportunity DRC will secure its deposit-taking license to begin accepting savings deposits, and they plan to open more branches in Kinshasa.

Links:

• Read our Blog to stay up-to-date on our work in DRC.