CUFA’s Credit Union Leaders Study Tour, May 2008

Are you aware of the positive impact Credit Unions are having in developing nations? If your answer is no, you may find it interesting to learn what it means to some families to be able to borrow as little as $10.00 or safely save to improve their lifestyle and move out of extreme poverty.

Credit Union Foundation Australia (CUFA) is the development agency for the Australian credit union movement, and has both a domestic and international focus and its mission is ‘to empower communities through access to affordable financial services’.

CUFA's domestic work focuses on ‘community advocacy and education’ while overseas work focuses on access to financial services for disadvantaged communities of the South East Asia and Pacific regions.

In particular:

• Cambodia       
• Solomon Islands    
• Sri Lanka         
• Tonga         
• Tuvalu

In May of this year, Tony Innes, Savings & Loans Deputy CEO, joined fourteen other leaders from the Australian credit union movement to participate in CUFA’s Credit Union Leaders Study Tour. The purpose of the tour was to increase awareness of CUFA’s international work by showcasing two of their major projects in Cambodia, namely:

• The Children’s Saving Program
• The Building Program

This Study Tour made it possible for Cambodian credit union leaders to learn from the travelling Australian credit union leaders group.

The group visited financial literacy classes run by local CUFA Field Officers. The lessons teach the importance of saving money for future dreams. This program reaches over 6,000 Cambodian children annually. To find out more, take a look at page five of CUFA’s recent newsletter.

The group also visited a number of rural savings institutions aimed at women, children and farmers. These are located in new premises built and funded by CUFA. The group heard the importance of the new buildings in installing confidence amongst locals.

As Tony Innes admitted, “The study tour gave me a deeper appreciation of what CUFA do and it was great to see first hand the difference that our donations make to the lives of the Cambodian children’.

                        

The Australian credit union leaders made presentations (through the help of an interpreter) on a variety of topics to Cambodian credit union Managers. One of the presentations, given by Tony Innes (also an Al Gore Climate Change Presenter), covered Gore’s famous climate change ‘Inconvenient Truth’ slide show. This presentation was actually a first for the Cambodian community and clearly important in helping to educate about the issues and impacts of climate change.  

                              

CUFA's International work compliments domestic work in many ways. Importantly, for Savings&Loans, we see this as most crucial through actively cooperating with other credit unions, cooperatives and their associations at local, national and international levels. By sticking to this we seek to best serve the interests of our members and communities.

If you have a story of how positive cooperative work has made great differences, we would love to hear about them. 

Comments

[Patrick Gibson]

Just following up on Tony's post, a group of us from Savings & Loans are going back to Cambodia in September to help with the financial literacy programs. Have a look at our blog at http://savingsloans.typepad.com/cambodia/

[Tony Innes]

Sid
thanks for your comment. Keep your eyes on our web page for news of some volunteer opportunities with Savings & Loans in the coming year on the domestic front. The oportunities to volunteer on overseas projects are currently limited but through time we will look to engage members on trips such as the Study Tour in Cambodia which the article refers to.
Cheers

Tony Innes
Deputy CEO

[Fran]

Thank you Sid. It is certainly important to think and act both locally and globally. You do raise an important point, as I am sure there are many individuals interested in being involved in projects of this nature - and sometimes all it takes is simply a point in the right direction. Just as Tony has suggested, keep an eye on our website for future volunteering opportunities. On a similar note, two programs which may be of interest to you are the Australian Youth Ambassador Development (AYAD) Program and the Indigenous Community Volunteers (ICV)Program. Both of these programs offer great opportunities to volunteer your time and experience and there are no costs involved.

Fran

[Sidney]

Its great to see a local company acting globally. You should be congratulated. Have you thought about how customers can get involved. I know a lot of young people like me who would jump at the chance to volunteer overseas or in Australia for a worthwhile cause.

Sid