Guest of Honour - Awards Dinner - November 14, 2015

Her Excellency, Mrs Aloun Ndombet-Assamba, Jamaican High Commissioner in London  
Guest of Honour and Keynote Speaker - 2015 UK Credit Union "Oscars"            

The ICULD&E Foundation was very proud and privileged to have as Guest of Honour and Keynote Speaker at the Edward Filene Credit Union Awards for Performance Excellence and the Joe Biden Awards for Development Educator of the Year in London on November 14th, 2015, Her Excellency Aloun Ndombet-Assamba who became Jamaica’s 12th High Commissioner to the United Kingdom in May 2012.  She is also non-resident Ambassador to six countries namely; Ireland, the Republic of Finland, the Republic of Cyprus and the Kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

She was accompanied by Vivienne Siva, the Jamaican High Commission's Community Relations Officer for the Jamaican diaspora in the UK.

Throughout her work life, High Commissioner Assamba was well respected for her service in both the public and private sectors.  In the private sector, the High Commissioner had an illustrious career at the City of Kingston Co-operative Credit Union (COK) rising to the level of General Manager in 1994 and during her office, increasing membership from 35,000 to 140,000 members.

Among her many achievements, the High Commissioner received the 2015 World Council Credit Union Lifetime Achievement Award at the WOCCU Annual Conference in Denver in July 2015, as well as the accolade of Honorary Caribbean Development Educator. (Hon CaribDE).  She also has the prestigious Heinz Fellowship obtained from the University of Pittsburgh in the USA, where she studied Strategic Management.

In a poignant and sometimes humorous address, she told the story of how credit unions came to Jamaica, of her involvement in and attraction to the credit union movement since her teenage years, her reliance upon the credit union to fund her career progression, lifestyle and progressive career within it prior to her entry into a political and diplomatic career.

What was particularly illuminating was the very simple explanation for the explosive growth of her mother credit union of which she was the General Manager - from 35,000 owner-members to 140,000 in two years by giving owner-members what they want/need, empathy and service standards that are better than the banks and regularly going out and talking to the people.

She also stated that the Jamaican Government could not afford to give "a penny to credit unions" and that the Jamaican movement would not deal with banks.  When the  Jamaican Government set down its requirements for credit union capital adequacy, this was contributed by the owner-members themselves from their own funds.

Her Excellency's final remarks were a devastating challenge to the British Credit Union movement. "I read in the latest World Council of Credit Union's news briefing that the UK credit union movement hopes to achieve 2 million credit union owner-members by 2020.  When compared to the total population of Jamaica and its number of credit union owner-members, this figure should be over 20 million".

Her Excellency is one of us!

It is a tradition of the Awards Dinner to make a donation to a charity nominated by the Guest of Honour and it was with pleasure that a cheque for £500 was presented to Her Excellency, in the name of The Chain of Hope which provides heart surgery and specialised hospitals and treatment for children in many parts of the world.