Problem

When HIV strikes in Africa, limited family assets are quickly depleted, dropping incomes by 40 to 80 percent while medical expenses skyrocket by 400 percent. That leads to a terrible choice: medicine or food. Without resources and with little hope, poor women are especially vulnerable — even more so as they take in orphan children of relatives lost to AIDS.

The Gift

This gift will help fight poverty and AIDS in Africa through microenterprise development. Through group-guaranteed loans, HIV/AIDS education, peer support, training, counseling, insurance and youth apprenticeship programs, the support will change the basic economic realities for millions of families in Africa — a real change offering real hope, especially to women, widows, young girls and orphans. Opportunity’s microfinance loans are made through Trust Groups and repayment rates exceed 98 percent. That means that money given is incredibly efficient, used again and again to fight poverty and AIDS in Africa. Through combined efforts, we can fight the AIDS crisis in Africa by fighting the chronic poverty that fuels it, encouraging community, jobs, opportunity and social empowerment for Africa’s most neglected people.