By James Arvanitakis, Lecturer in Writing Journalism & Social Inquiry, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences, UTS

We appear to be living in a time when economic priorities dominate over other concerns – be they social, environmental or cultural. Within this paradigm, policy-making is focusing more on meeting the many material wants of the population rather than fostering and protecting a sense of community.

In this environment, there is a clear need to identify ways to promote the concept of community and cooperation. One model that appears to be achieving this goal is offered by Credit Union Foundation Australia (CUFA). CUFA is the development agency for the Australian credit union movement. It supports people in the Asia Pacific region to develop viable credit unions in their communities, and works with rural and Indigenous communities in Australia to extend financial services to people who currently lack access to such services. CUFA maintains strategic alliances with credit union leagues, government and non-government development agencies.

An integral part of the CUFA’s activities is the Development Education (DE) program, which is held twice yearly. The program brings together about 30 participants from Australia, Australian Indigenous people, Asia, and the Pacific.

The DE program is about communicating and promoting the unique role of credit unions in co-operative development and fostering the personal development of advocates for the credit union system. It is the first step towards building a core group of credit union people for ongoing commitment to credit union and cooperative advocacy.

The five-day residential DE workshop asks participants to question the way they view the world. Participants receive and deliver presentations in the areas of development and of credit unions and their work (both nationally and internationally). They learn the role co-operatives can play in building communities – be they in first-world or third-world nations, rural or urban, or in wealthy or low-income areas.

The participants gain a wide range of new skills, but more importantly they learn that communities all over the world face similar challenges. To ‘graduate’, participants need to outline a personal ‘action plan’ that they will implement within their communities or credit unions on their return. The aim of the action plan is to put into practice and reinforce the many lessons learnt over the five days.

Since the inception of its Development Education Workshops in 1991, 651 credit union people have participated in the 25 workshops held to date.

Over the last few months, a group of Sydney based graduates of the DE program has met to consider whether the program is transferable to the wider community as a vehicle for sustainable community development. We believe that there is strong potential for this to happen.