Impact News Spring/Summer 2012

spring/summer 2012

How Noemi leads The inspiring story of Noemi Vivas Ocaña, a fish-selling client turned regional manager at Opportunity Nicaragua, is featured in the book “How Great Women Lead: A Mother-Daughter Adventure into the Lives of Women Shaping the World.” Co-authors Bonnie St. John and Darcy Deane interviewed Noemi, her co-workers and family on a 2008 visit to Nicaragua. The result is a chapter on how Noemi struggled to support her three children before receiving a loan from Opportunity, and how each subsequent loan enabled her to incrementally grow her business. The authors document Noemi’s rise from poverty to become treasurer and then president of her Trust Group, an Opportunity loan officer, and now head of the regional office in San Rafael with responsibility for 17 loan officers. These loan officers provide support to approximately 1,200 (mostly women) clients who are working their way out of poverty.

Meet our millionth savings client Faith Kaligirwa and Frank Rubanda in their tailoring shop

Like other women leaders featured in the book, Noemi talks about work-life balance. “You have responsibilities on both sides, but they are different,” she says. “The struggle for me is to find the moments to spend with my family. It is hard, but God gives us the strength.”

The husband-wife team of Frank Rubanda and Faith Kaligirwa ran a small dairy business in Mubende, Uganda, and dreamed of the day they could use Frank’s training as a suit maker to open a tailoring business. They purchased cows and sold the milk, but still found it impossible to set aside enough money to start a second business and meet the needs of their seven young children.

On page 5, read more about the book launch and how it will benefit Opportunity’s clients.

Then Frank and Faith became Opportunity’s one millionth savings client and their dreams began to come true. With savings and an Opportunity loan, they opened Bakiyonga Modern Tailors, the only shop of its kind in Mubende. After years of hiding their cash at home, they now have an Opportunity bank in their community. Their account isn’t just safe, it’s convenient. Each day they walk to the bank to deposit their income—and earn interest on it. Paying school fees was once a struggle, but Faith and Frank are close to reaching their dream of sending their children to private schools. “We are thankful to God for what we have been able to do,” says Frank. “Opportunity bank came to us by way of a miracle.” Today Frank and Faith are having an impact not only on their family, but on their community where they employ seven people to create custom suits for women and men. For employees who lack training in tailoring, Frank has created a unique apprenticeship program that effectively “pays it forward,” teaching workers valuable skills they can use for a lifetime. The business is open from dawn to dusk, filling more than 20 customer orders each day—without electricity. Faith regularly travels to Kampala to purchase material, a job once handled by her husband alone. In a country where women struggle to be

Noemi Vivas Ocaña

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