Hunger Count 2008

Last Monday I attended the Greater Hamilton Food Share’s Head Office for a press release announcing the sponsorship program by Tim Horton’s and their Smile Cookie campaign. Every penny from the one dollar purchase of a smile cookie at time Horton’s went directly to Hamilton Food Share, which in turn can then purchase ten dollars worth of food to give to those in need.
It was at this Press release that Joanne Santucci, released the Hunger Count of 2008, a report on the state of Hamilton population in regard to those in need of financial support – and the numbers are shocking.

Some notes:

• More than 15,500 people turn to food banks every month.
• That number represents 6300 households
• 40% of those are children
• One in Five of those children go without breakfast or a balanced meal at least once a week.
• $4.10 per day – the amount that a single parent with one child on Ontario Works has for food.
• $14,000.00 – the poverty gap between actual Ontario Works Benefit Income and the poverty line for a single parent with one child.
  

As I said the numbers are shocking and it’s up to the community and organizations like Tim Horton’s and your Hamilton Community Credit Union to step up and assist.

HCCU will be doing there part by helping raise money with our Credit Union Day raffle and event. October 16th marks International Credit Union Day and at HCCU that means a BBQ and Bake Sale featuring the delicious eats of our very own members and staff (if you’re a baker please contact either branch to donate your baked goods) and our Credit Union Day Raffle.

1st prize – Hamilton Bulldogs Prize Pack including tickets and a Jersey
2nd prize – Hamilton Bulldog tickets

All proceeds are donated to the Greater Hamilton Food Share to help our local communities
during the busy winter season so come on in and get your tickets and make sure to visit us on the 16th.

Also check back for Malcolm’s wrap up of his trip to Bangladesh.

Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 5

Today was a quiet day in the hotel for me. No presentations or visits and heavy rains kept me inside for the whole day. This evening the Co-operative Credit Union League of Bangladesh hosted “Bangladesh Night” that featured a number of culturally significant song and dance numbers by local artists and a traditional meal.

I’m hoping to get to bed early tonight as tomorrow is my final and largest presentation at the conference and when it is over I will be packing up and heading back on the long journey home.

This trip and conference has been an excellent experience but I am looking forward to getting back home to see my family, getting back to the office, eating some of my favourite foods and breathing some fresh clean air (yes, by comparison Hamilton has nice clean air).

Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 4

September 25

As mentioned, today we took a bus tour through the city to a local Credit Union but before we went there, we stopped for a presentation at ASA (pronounced Asha), Bangladesh’s largest Micro Finance Institution (MFI). The name is not as familiar as the other major MFI (Grameen Bank, whose founder Muhammad Yunus won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize) but the organization is very similar in its mission to help lift people out of poverty by encouraging savings and offering small self-help loans. There we heard their founder talk about the organization and the work that they are doing. They have over 3,330 branches and over seven million members accessing their services which include savings, and a variety of lending products classified as Small Loans, Small Business Loans, Small Entrepreneur Loans, Hardcore Poor Loans, Education Loans, Short Term Loans, Rehabilitation Loans, IT Loans and Agribusiness Loans. They also provide health assistance, and insurance solutions and they run a well respected University that grants degrees, including an LLB and MBA.

The presentation was very interesting and the work that they are doing is certainly having a positive impact for some, but my thoughts are mixed on whether Micro Credit, is a realistic long term strategy to solve the poverty problem. One participant asked an excellent question that ASA, was unable to provide a good answer to…”with all of the MFI’s offering services in the area aren’t many people simply borrowing from one to pay the other”. ASA’s answer was simply yes, in some cases. To me it sounded a lot like people at home using credit cards to pay for other credit cards, and this is certainly not an effective way to reduce poverty. The intention is good and it is helping millions, but I don’t think that it is the right solutions for everyone. But until a better solution emerges it is a step in the right direction.

From there, we fought our way through Dhaka’s traffic to visit the Buddhist Co-operative Credit Union, that serves 1515 members. This tiny one room Credit Union welcomed us warmly with song, food and drinks and they showed us their basic operations and gave us statistical overview of the organization that has been in business since 1990. Today, they have roughly $300,000 (in Canadian dollars) in assets and notably almost $25,000 of that is in children’s savings accounts. They also have 8 of 12 board member who are under the age of 35, so they seem to be doing a good job of reaching the next generation of members and leaders and they should be well positioned to survive and thrive into the future.

Overall a very interesting day, although I have to admit that I was at times overwhelmed by the sights, sounds, smells and heat of the city.

Tomorrow, I’ll spend the day in conference sessions in the comfort of the hotel’s air conditioning.

Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 3

September 24, another productive and successful day in Bangladesh.

Today was the final day of the workshop and we were able to synthesize all of the learning and theory into a number of recommendations that were presented to the conference and will be acted upon at the three levels of Credit Unions in Asia. Firstly we made recommendation to individual Credit Unions, knows as “Primaries” in Asia, to the national federations, and to the Asian Confederation of Credit Unions. We came up with some excellent plans and it is now up to those three levels to implement them and take action if these plans are ultimately going to have the desired impact of attracting young members to Credit Unions as a way to reduce poverty.

Judging by the excitement of the group, I think that they have a good chance of seeing at least some of these recommendations be implemented. In fact, I further explored the city and went to a local shopping centre (Bashundhara City, a 21 story modern complex that houses the largest shopping mall in South Asia)after the workshop and presentation, with Derek Cameron and Tapon Rodrigues ( a young Credit Union Director and native of Dhaka). Over a drink in the food court I was thrilled by Tapon’s excitement. He came to the conference with little in the way of expectations and is now very excited about the prospect for making changes in his Credit Union. He has already spoken to the Chair of his Board of Directors about some of the initiatives and programs that he would like to implement and he has developed a two year plan and timetable to measure his success. I’m certain that his enthusiasm and renewed passion will have a real and positive effect on the Credit Union system in Bangladesh and hopefully it will help to lift at least some people out of their unimaginable poverty. Education as well as products and services designed to encourage savings and thrift are extremely powerful tools to help people break their shackles of extreme poverty.

Tomorrow I will be spending the day with a group of conference attendees visiting at least one local Credit Union. I’m looking forward to seeing it in action and comparing it to what we are used to in Canada.

Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 2

September 23 was an exciting and eye opening day.

My session went very well and I think that we made some real progress in terms of coming up with some solutions to the challenges of poverty and sustainability for Asian Credit Unions, and it was the first time that I have had a chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the city beyond my hotel walls.

As a group we went through a number scenarios that I had come up with in terms of needs of member and how to develop products and services to meet those needs. It was interesting to me that in many cases the scenarios that I had developed were nowhere near the realities of the Asian market place. For example in Canada, approximately 50% of marriages end in divorce, this creates needs for savings and lending solutions for single parents. While common in Canada, the notion of single parents in Bangladesh was extremely foreign. According the statistics that I heard today, less than 1% of local marriages end in divorce and the numbers are similarly low elsewhere in Asia.

Young people here are not buying houses (in fact many Asian Credit Unions don’t offer mortgages) until they are much older, many are living with multiple generations in a single “flat”. Asian youth are saving for smaller scale things like computers, and electronic gadgets that many North Americans buy outright or finance through loans or credit cards. There is also a lot of emphasis on saving for education because in many cases even a secondary school education requires that the student finance at least a portion of it. Another interesting piece of information that I learned today was that many Asian’s are unable to afford to deliver their infants in hospitals. Without the support of a national healthcare systems, many young Asian families are forced to give birth at home without medical attention. We discussed this situation in detail and explored the possibilities of Credit Unions providing some sort of self-insurance for exactly this situation. A model exists in Indonesia where some Credit Unions are doing just this and we explored the possibilities of adapting and applying their solutions elsewhere on the continent.

The workshop felt great. We tackled some big issues and came up with some small, but actionable solutions. Everyone recognizes that these are huge issues and we don’t think that we can solve any of them, what we are hoping to do is bring about some small changes that can hopefully grow.

After the workshop, one of the participants (Shajal a Dhaka resident), a couple of other conference attendees and I explored a bit of this sprawling, over-crowded, polluted and incredibly impoverished city. We walked a ways, visited a local art gallery and library before taking a rickshaw (the city has 400,000 of them) to a place known as the Bongo Bazaar. This market was literally packed floor to ceiling with all sorts of clothing and fabrics. People were selling everything and negotiating was the name of the game. I was extremely hot and crowded and a little bit overwhelming. Without Shajal I would be been lost and I’m sure I would still be there walking around in the maze of aisles and corridors. I bought a couple of shirts as did the others and we wondered around this market for about an hour. It was quite an experience. I have never seen anything like it. Then we took a “Tuck Tuck” a three wheeled motorized rickshaw back to the hotel where we had dinner and shared the story of our experience with others.

Today was truly a day that I will never forget.

Looking forward to wrapping up the workshop tomorrow, the tour of the local Credit Union on Thursday and then my presentation to the conference on Saturday.

Malcolm in Bangladesh - Day 1

As expected, my trip to the Bangladesh capital of Dhaka was very long. My journey started at 5:30 am with a pick up at my home and after a couple of stops to pick up other travelers I arrived at the airport around 7:15 am, checked-in and cleared security before heading towards my departure gate to meet up with my travelling companion Derek Cameron from the CCA. Our flight to Hong Kong left at 9:30 am and lasted about 16 hours and with the exception of some turbulence about three hours out of Hong Kong was relatively uneventful. Upon arriving in Hong Kong I enjoyed a short rest and shower in one of the airport’s traveler’s lounges, had some dinner and made a few phone calls before boarding the Dragon Air flight to Dhaka. This was a short four hour flight and it seemed like a breeze after the 16 hour marathon of earlier in the day. Got to Dhaka at about 1:00 am local time, took over an hour to get through customs and to claim my luggage and I arrived at my hotel just before 3:00 am.

Got a wake-up call for 8:00 so that I could attend the first conference presentation at 9:00 and begin my workshop at 10:00. The opening session was very interesting and had speakers from the ACCU and from the Bangladesh Credit Union League. They talked about the system and the economy and it was a real eye opener for me. Bangladesh has a population of 150 million people, making it the eighth most populous country in the world and with its relatively small land mass it has a population density of over 950 people per square Km. It is also an extremely poor country with a national average annual per capita GDP of only US$ 599. I expect that poverty and its alleviation will be a recurring theme at this week’s sessions.

My workshop topic for today was “Understanding the Youth Market” and from my perspective the session went very well considering cultural and language barriers with 22 people from 8 countries represented. It was interesting to me that Credit Unions around the world share a similar challenge…that of being relevant to the next generation of members. We talked about segmentation and tried to understand what drives the youth market (defined as under 35) in making purchase decisions and for signing up for Credit Union membership. We will continue the session tomorrow and on Wednesday we will create a marketing plan that will be endorsed by ACCU and rolled out to its member nations.

So far so good. Feeling good, although a little tired now that the day is done. Going to have some dinner in the hotel before turning in for an early night.

HCCU in Bangladesh

In the world of Credit Unions, an accusation that is so often tossed around is “You’re becoming more like a bank everyday!” but what does a statement like this mean? What it usually means is that the Credit Union has lost that personal touch. They’re no longer a friend to the member and begin to nickel and dime their “customers” every chance they get. More so they’ve lost the spirit of what a Credit Union is all about – Providing financial assistance and solutions to further community development. In other words, to help out his fellow man, which is why it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you Hamilton Community Credit Union’s CEO, Malcolm Stoffman, as he prepares to travel across the globe to achieve exactly this.

A few words from our CEO….

From September 20 – October 1 I have accepted a Technical Assignment that was offered to me by the Canadian Co-operative Association (CCA) in partnership with the Asian Confederation of Credit Union (ACCU). The assignment is made up of two parts; firstly, I will be working with a group of approximately 25 marketing managers and youth marketing experts (from all over Asia) in a three day workshop to help develop strategies and plans to increase their market share with this important demographic. Secondly, I will be addressing ACCU annual meeting on the topic of “Strategies that Build Credit Union Futures”. The meetings and workshops take place in Dhaka, the Capital of Bangladesh. Asian Credit Unions face many of the same challenges that we face here in terms of remaining relevant to the next generation of Credit Union members in addition to the challenges of rapidly changing culture and modernization as a result of the developing nature of their economies. The CCA and the ACCU have a long standing partnership and Canadians have played an important role in helping the countries to develop their co-operative and Credit Union sectors.

I will be leaving Saturday morning from Toronto, flying to Hong Kong, spending several hours there before flying to Dhaka for arrival at approximately 1:00 am local time (30+ hours later). I am in Dhaka from the 22nd until the 28th when I do the reverse trip home. I plan on posting regular updates (including pictures) on the experience to the HCCU Blog so check back often for info and updates.

If you have any questions I am happy to answer them in the comments section below.

Thanks for your support.

Malcolm Stoffman

I know I look forward to hearing about his progress and success.

About the CCA

CCA supports its members and the co-op sector through the provision of services in three core areas - development, government affairs & public policy, and common table.

Development

For over a quarter century, CCA has assisted co-operatives of all types and descriptions in over 40 countries through their International Development Program. Wherever the CCA is active - in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and Eastern Europe – our their development projects are designed and managed with the complete involvement of local co-operative partners. Through co-operatives, CCA works to reduce poverty. Their work helps people to provide themselves with food, with education, with shelter, and with higher levels of income.

Technical Assignments

Each year CCA recruits experts in technical fields such as Credit Union management, sustainable agriculture, co-op legislation and policy, project evaluation, micro-finance and micro-insurance to take on overseas assignments to strengthen local Credit Unions, co-operatives and their federations.

About the ACCU

Since its birth in 1971 the ACCU has served more than 16,000 Credit Unions with 20.5 million individual members in 26 countries in the region along with 17 affiliates promoting Credit Unions in Asia. Membership to ACCU is open to national credit union leagues/federations or other national cooperative financial or similar organizations that follow international Credit Union operating principles and with membership of at least 20,000 individuals or one percent of the population of the country where the organization operates.

Vision

Sustainable Credit Unions in Asia

Mission

ACCU works in partnership with its members to strengthen and promote credit unions as effective instruments of socio-economic development of the people.

ACCU is affiliated with the following international organizations of credit unions/cooperatives:
World Council of Credit Unions

• International Raiffeisen Union
• International Cooperative Alliance
• United Nations

HCCU Has Been Nominated

Once again this year Hamilton Community Credit Union is being recognized for going above and beyond the communities expectations by being nominated for a Readers’ Choice Award presented by the Hamilton Spectator.

What sets this nomination apart from other awards is that it is not your typical acclamation from a fellow Big Business. This is recognition from you our members in the community we serve.

Truly being recognized by our fellow membership for a job well done is something HCCU is proud of, but in order to secure our place a top the list of Bank/Credit Unions we need your vote.

Follow THIS LINK to the Hamilton Spectator’s Readers’ Choice nominee’s page and make your vote count.

Last year HCCU was awarded the Diamond Award, let’s make this the year we bring home the gold.

Ti-cat Tickets

The Ti-cats have arranged for 100 (more if we want) ticket vouchers to be made available to us to sell for 25$ each. No money is needed up front but I will be signing for vouchers so I will be responsible for them. They are good for a bronze section ticket to any regular season home game. These tickets are worth $35 plus a service charge and they are good seats. 10 dollars for each voucher sold will go to the Smith fund. There are 4 home games left this year so I hope we can move quickly to get the word out to ATU members who might be able to move some vouchers and perhaps all City of Hamilton employees who may buy vouchers. I will have the vouchers by Friday PM. The remaining home games are, Sat. Sept.6 @4pm, Fri. Sept. 19 @ 7:30pm, Sat. Oct. 4 @ 4pm and Fri. Oct. 24 @ 7:30pm. If you have any questions regarding the program call me or Brian King @ 905-547-2287 X307. To purchase vouchers call 905-387-8361 or 905-741-4872.