CUA Youth Savings Conference

February 14, 2013

"This weekend was the annual CUA Youth Savings Conference in Ghana. Students from all over the country were invited to the conference. Around twenty-five students attended with ten teachers. The students were some of the most motivated students that I have encountered so far in Ghana. They were incredibly bright and ambitious young men and women who are coming of age in a Ghana that is growing economically as well as developing socially. When speaking with these students, I came to understand that many of them are interested in attending college or university or developing their own small and medium-sized businesses. The opportunities for this generation are endless and the students that attended the conference are the ones who will benefit the most as they’re the ones who will seize these opportunities.


Ernest and Students conference students

The conference started on Friday evening with students starting to arrive at around 4PM and continuing to arrive in small groups for the next few hours. The conference took place in a small Christian retreat centre in the town of Takoradi in the Western Region. We showed the students to their rooms and let them get settled before having supper and a brief assembly. For the assembly we simply welcomed the students and then ran a few icebreaker exercises and played a few games so everybody would have a chance to get to know one another. I was fortunate to have my Canadian co-worker, Lucy (gender programming intern), along with me at the conference. She has lots of experience in theatre and camp programming and was therefore a wealth of knowledge and experience for ice-breakers. The students were quite excited to participate and meet new friends.

After the students were comfortable and energized from the games and ice-breakers, we all sat down together and democratically decided on the rules of the conference. Some of the rules that the students suggested were exactly what I would expect from intelligent compassionate young men and women anywhere in the world. These were things like “respect each other’s opinions,” “don’t use harsh words,” and “listen when others are speaking.” But there were some other rules that the students agreed upon that would not have come up in a Canadian context. Two that stand out in my mind are “bath twice each day” and “say your daily prayers.” These two rules surprised me because I come from a culture in which people don’t question each other’s’ hygiene openly and the issue of religion is consistently off-the-table. These are touchy subjects that most Canadians will not touch but within the Ghanaian culture these are basic ground rules that came about quite naturally.

The next morning, the participants were awoken for breakfast bright and early and then led back to the conference hall for a full day of activities. The gender department started the day’s presentations with an information session teaching the students about subjects like sex vs. gender and gender based stereotyping. Traditional gender roles are a large part of Ghanaian society and this has, historically, had a negative impact on the ability of women and men to gain equal footing within the workforce. The goal of the gender department is to create a credit union movement that is gender equitable and one way that we can do this is by teaching the young credit union members before these gender stereotypes are too engrained. 

Carla from CUA of Ghana and Lucy, a CCA Intern

The next presentation at the conference was moderated Clara, by a staff-member of the Credit Union Association of Ghana. Her presentation was on leadership roles and effective management styles. The students participated in some leadership exercises and games before we broke for lunch. After returning from lunch I presented a piece on business plan development for small businesses. The goal of the exercise was to teach the students to think about running a small business from multiple perspectives. We went over things like marketing planning, sourcing funding and developing a corporate vision. After my brief lesson I set the students up with an exercise in which they broke out into groups and developed a fictional company and created a small business plan around that company. The students briefly presented their business plans in front of the group. I was quite impressed by the level of thought that the students put into their business plans. The students thought about things like non-financial investment, job creation, emerging markets and product enhancement and presented the pros and cons of their proposed businesses eloquently.

After my business plan session the group broke for a couple of hours for dinner break. After dinner we met back up for a quiz contest which quickly turned into a dance contest. After the quiz and dancing the whole group was starting to get understandably tired so we all went back to our rooms and rested up for the last day of the conference.

Mam Cate as she presents to the students

On the last day of the conference we were visited by the general manager of CUA, Mr. Emmanuel Darko, the health officer, Mama Cate and Mrs. Abba Smith, the woman who started the youth savings clubs in Ghana. Mama Cate spoke to the students about sexually transmitted infections and the practice of safe sex. I’ve seen Mama Cate present probably a half dozen times and every time she presents she manages to make the presentation even more funny and shocking than the last time. She’s an older woman who spent her youth as a nurse working with the national health department, working during the AIDS crises. She has seen it all and knows, I’m sure, more than she would care to share, but she always manages to make her presentations light-hearted and informative. Mr. Darko spoke about the potential that this generation has and about how good decision making can lead this young Ghanaians to a bright and prosperous future. Lastly, Mrs. Abba Smith talked to the students about the history of the youth savings clubs in Ghana and what the future looks like for the program and for the students involved. Mrs. Smith is very passionate about the program and is seen as a mother figure to the students and staff involved.

Mr. Darko

After the presentations from the dignitaries, the group broke one last time for lunch. The students, who had become close friends over the last few days, mingled and played around while myself and the other staff started to pack up our gear into the truck and get ready to head back to Accra. As they started to head off back to their own towns, the students mentioned that they appreciated the program and wished that they could stick around for even longer."

-Joel

Working Alongside Canadian Credit Union Managers

"During the month of January I spent a few weeks with a group of Canadian credit union managers who were in Ghana on a mission with the Canadian Co-operative Association, working to further development of the Ghanaian credit union movement. Every year, CCA sends teams of credit union practitioners from all across Canada to Ghana and Uganda to help provide guidance for the budding credit unions in Africa. Because the Ghanaian credit union movement is much younger than the Canadian credit union movement, the Canadian credit unions are looked upon with significant respect and admiration. I was fortunate to be able to accompany several of the visiting practitioners with their visits to credit unions in Ghana.

Before we set out to the credit unions for the visits, all of the visiting credit union practitioners met with some of the staff of the Credit Union Association of Ghana for a day of in-country training and discussion. The visiting Canadians were all very excited to get to meet with the CUA staff who are absolutely essential in bolstering the credit unions in Ghana. Some of the visiting Canadians had visited Ghana before on another coaching mission through CCA before and were certainly aware of what to expect with their visits while others seemed excited and nervous about their first experience in West Africa.

The training day consisted of things like addressing conflict of interest, recommendations for loan policy development, and good governance. The Canadians and the Ghanaians discussed what sorts of policies worked and what didn’t work in the context and how they could adjust these policies from the Canadian examples to properly address local issues. For example, in Canada, it’s quite easy to assess a member for a loan by accessing their credit history, where as in Ghana, credit reporting doesn’t exist and therefore loans managers are much more dependent upon personal references and guarantors.

I spent the next week traveling from Accra to the Central Region, then on to the Volta Region and finally back to Accra. I met with three credit union managers and six of the visiting coaches in the field. The stories that the coaches shared with me were quite incredible. The credit unions that the coaches visited ranged from a hundred members and two staff members to thousands of members and a team of thirty employees. The issues that the credit unions face are even more varying. Some credit unions have delinquency rates that are absolutely crippling where others have significant problems with conflict of interest. The coaches spent days sitting down with the credit union managers and board members, hearing their successes and their challenges and then returned the next day to provide them with a written report, detailing their challenges and recommendations to address their challenges. Some coaches left behind draft policies and documentation to help get their staffing issues in line or to properly address new loans.

All of the coaches spent their last day in Ghana at the Credit Union Association office in Accra discussing their work with each other as well as with the CUA staff. Getting to hear about all their experiences and how they advised the Ghanaian credit unions to build and develop on their strengths and address their weaknesses in a positive manner was a really interesting experience. The goal of the CCA coaching program is to help the Ghanaian credit union movement move towards independence. Hopefully someday soon Ghana will be sending their credit union practitioners to other countries to share what they have learned from their own experiences in developing a sustainable successful credit union sector."

 

-Joel