MU| F e a t u r e s
W
hen Beverly Ott ’80
ventured to Manchester
in the fall of 1976, the
Huntertown, Ind., native
traveled only 50 miles.
It may as well have been 500.
Ott’s first class was at 8 a.m., Humanities 101
with T. Wayne Rieman. She walked into the
room and saw a 64-year-old man on a swivel
chair saying to each student, “My name’s Tim.
What’s yours?” The informality threw her off
balance. It was the first of many questions that
professors would ask on her journey of self-
discovery.
“Manchester,” says Ott, “was a turning point in
my life.”
Eventually, that life would lead Ott and her
husband, Olivier Hauville, to create a nonprofit
designed to attack poverty in West Africa. But
the seeds that inspired Ott’s life work were
sown at Manchester. The social work major
took courses that defied black and white
answers and encouraged her to ask “why?” At
20, she boarded an airplane for the first time,
bound for Marburg, Germany, and a semester
of study abroad.
Her passport now symbolizes the world view
she developed at Manchester.
After graduation, Ott earned her master’s
degree in international social work planning and
management from Indiana University. She spent
two years working as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Jamaica and, in 1986, began working with the
U.S.-based NGO World Neighbors in Chad,
where she met Hauville. World Neighbors
strives to eliminate poverty and disease in
the poorest nations of Africa, Asia and Latin
America.
In 1988, she was transferred to Togo to follow
up development activities in a five-country
region of West Africa. There, she and Hauville
launched ECHOPPE, a French word that
means “shop” in English and provides
microloans to help women gain financial
stability and invest in their own business
venture.
“We started this project from nothing,” says
Ott. “I had to let faith into my life.”
ECHOPPE started with 10 people. Today
there are 60,000 getting microloans to start
their own business ventures. This “small”
approach to poverty empowers people to
determine their own destiny. And it provides
them dignity. “The more you can provide
dignity, the more you can give them hope.”
Agnes was one of ECHOPPE’s early loan
recipients. She got a loan for $38 and started
selling candy that she carried on her head.
Little by little, Agnes saved some of her
profits and eventually opened a stand in the
local marketplace. From those profits, Agnes
sent her children to school. Today, she has a
large store, has built herself a home and has a
son studying medicine at a university.
Ott stays strongly connected to Manchester
because it had such a profound effect on
her life. Manchester “gave me the courage
to do something,” she says. She welcomes
Manchester students into her life because she
learned so much about herself and the world
when she studied abroad. “I want to provide
that opportunity for others.”
The compassion, justice and peace of her
alma mater’s mission is embedded in Ott’s
heart. As a Manchester student, she recalls,
“I wanted to save the world.” And so she is
doing that – one microloan at a time.
Even at 8 in the morning, Rieman liked to
say “Life is good. Yea!” Forty years after
Humanities 101, Ott remembers him and
shares the deep joy he found in his work with
people. “It is a beautiful life.”
By Melinda Lantz ’81
Over the years, ECHOPPE has expanded
beyond microloans and is working to connect
farmers with market vendors and helping
villages find alternative forms of energy.
ECHOPPE builds community in African
villages and encourages the people in those
communities to work together.
“Poverty is not a destiny,” insists Ott.
“Poverty can be solved.” But, she adds,
“miracles can only happen when there are
people working together.”
From their home near Angers, France, Ott
and Hauville, who have two adult children,
live on minimum wage salaries, seek grants
and loans to support their efforts, and
oversee a fair trade shop, a small farm, and
a bed and breakfast. They have involved a
number of Manchester students in their work
in France and taken several to Africa.
Among the courses T. Wayne Rieman taught
at Manchester was Humanities 101, Beverly
Ott’s first class as a first-year student in 1976.
Rieman was a longtime professor of religion
and philosophy.
VIDEO
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Manchester | 25