American In Albania

The streets of Tirana, Albania, are littered with garbage. Dirty children beg and sleep on sidewalks. The government is weak and close to anarchy after pyramid schemes collapsed, causing riots and plunging nearly everyone into poverty.

In this challenging environment, Rick Halmekangas opened an Opportunity International Partner in the summer of 1999. He will continue to direct the program for another year while training local staff to lead the organization. The country's four-decade history of repression and the government-backed pyramid schemes make most people distrust institutions and even each other. Albanian banks are not making loans, so microcredit programs are the poor entrepreneurs' only hope.

Even so, prospective clients think the program is just a scam. They are not convinced until the loan money is in their hands. "Then the light goes on," says Rick. "They finally realize that we are legitimate and want to help them."

Rick is an American and proud to be a part of Albania's recovery from the vicious reign of Hoxha, whom fellow communist Nikita Kruschev called "abnormal and evil." Albania remains the poorest country in Europe and fertile ground for the microenterprises that are braiding the grassroots of a free market economy.