Dine for Dignity launches small businesses around the globe
TORONTO, ON - Planning a barbeque? Why not use it to launch a business?
That's the challenge Christian micro-finance organization Opportunity International Canada is putting to supporters this summer, in conjunction with its 40th anniversary celebrations.
The Dine for Dignity campaign encourages people to host a meal and then donate the amount they would have spent on a restaurant to help someone in the developing world start a small business.
Most of the organization's small business loans are administered through small community groups, which provide both accountability and support. Paula Curtis, president and CEO of Opportunity International Canada, explains that meeting together for a meal “represents the essence" of that community focus.
“It's more than just receiving a loan," Curtis says. “It's about being in community together. It's about being in an accountability group which shares emotional support, spiritual support, practical support and financial support during the initial 16-week loan cycle."
These community groups also receive training and development through an Opportunity International officer. She says it's due in large part to this support and accountability that Opportunity International currently has a loan repayment rate of about 96 per cent.
Curtis held her own Dine for Dignity event at the end of May with barbequed chicken and a collection of old friends. She and her husband are also planning to host a couples' dinner during the summer.
Ross Clemenger of Edmonton, who gave out the organization's first loan in the early 1970s, hosted a soup and sandwich luncheon at the Sutton Place hotel, with his wife Ruth. Other Dine for Dignity events organized by supporters include a hike with a picnic lunch, a popcorn and movie night and dinner on a boat.
“It's not about throwing some grandiose dinner," says Brady Josephson, national director of marketing and communications. “It's about finding ways to come together, and realizing how creativity and resourcefulness can transform community."
The average Opportunity International small business loan is less than $150, which staff estimate can transform an average of seven lives. As a meal idea, this translates into just seven friends who come together and chip in $20 apiece.
“That's enough to start a small business," says Curtis. “That's enough to buy a sewing machine, or a yard of fabric. That's launching a sustainable business where the person is able to provide food, education and sustainable economy for his or her community."
Harkening back to the old proverb of how 'teaching a man to fish' will feed him for life, Curtis points out that a small business loan will then enable him to leave the shoreline and buy his first fishing boat.
“And that's an investment in someone's dignity," she adds.
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