Graduating out of Extreme Poverty in Colombia Inaugural Cohort Completes Two-Year Ultra-Poverty Graduation Program, September 2024 For more than fifty years, Opportunity International has been driven by our North star: providing the chance for people living in the deepest poverty to create sustainable livelihoods. Certainly not easy work and never a “quick fix,” people often ask about the results of fighting poverty one family at a time. Thanks to the faithful focus of families in Colombia and the unflagging support of Opportunity’s team of experts, we are grateful to share the results of our first cohort of graduates from the Ultra-Poverty Graduation program in Colombia: more than 200 families have “graduated” from the lowest level of poverty: ► 91% of graduates started the program living on 83 cents a day—less than half of Cartagena’s extreme poverty line. ► At “Graduation,” those families are living on $2.53 a day—emerging from the deepest poverty on the road to sustainable livelihoods. The results of the first Ultra-Poverty Graduation program in urban Cartagena, Colombia indicate that the approach significantly changes the lives of the participants, their families, and their communities. Opportunity staff who have and will continue to support participants throughout the program note the significance of the program not just in quantitative impact: “People are different; they look, talk, and act differently”—they have more confidence and deeper connections to their families and their communities. Colombia Graduation Cohort 1, August 2024
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