By Olimatou Coker
The National Association of Cooperative Credit Unions of The Gambia (NACCUG) over the weekend hosted the 3rd edition of the credit union managers and volunteers conference to raise awareness about NACCUG and the credit union movement in The Gambia.
The theme for the year’s conference focuses on “Financial Cooperative Harnessing Resources to Promote Economic Resilience in Communities”.
Foday Sanyang, General Manager of NACCUG, said the idea behind this is to bring the credit union movement together under one roof to discuss relevant issues that affect the operations and the sustainability of the credit unions.
He said: “This year we have 32 credit unions participating with 114 participants all across the country. We started with the pre-work of the last two days, those pertinent topics in risk management and in Data Management, privacy, security. These are issues that credit unions felt important to them. And today is a convergent today’s disciplinary, where we have veteran people who are seasoned facilitators within the industry of the credit union, who will share their knowledge and expertise with members of this credit union so that they in turn, will gain the knowledge and when they go back to their respective credit union will be able to at least pass the knowledge and we will see the difference in terms of how their credit unions operate”.
“And as an edtech, we want to make sure our numbers data is secured. The credit union movement currently has 114,000 members Countrywide, and we want to make sure their data is as secure as it should. And that’s why we brought in Data Management as one of the topics. So we want to make sure the message get across and I hope at the end of the day’s conference, participants will be well capacitized,” he added.
Bintou Njie, Chairperson of NACCUG board, said: “Initial reports indicate a very successful workshop idea for you to implement what you have learned over the past few days in your credit unions. You have learned from Season facilitators and the courses were designed exclusively to enhance your experience and professional skills in your daily tasks in the credit union.”
“I am reliably informed that a total of 115 delegates from 32 credit unions are attending the conference. We thank the Board and management of credit unions who generously sponsored members from smaller credit unions. Your support clearly demonstrates the principle of cooperation among cooperatives,” she added.
Kwang Yung Jung, Regional Coordinator West Africa German Sparkassenstiftung, said:
“The idea of credit unions is actually part of our genetic code. So based on that it is also for our corporation very crucial to understand the different needs and challenges of the credit unions also to improve our corporations now can relate to be able to pinpoint where and what we can actually do or we can exactly do to support NACCUG and there associated of credit unions to improve and to grow. So that’s why I consider these management meetings for our cooperation as a very important step to improve our cooperation for us to understand more in depth, the needs and requirements of the credit union in the Gambia”.
