Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui

Feb­ru­ary was al­ways a mean­ing­ful month for us in the Caribbean. As we ho­n­oured Black His­to­ry Month and re­flect­ed on the sac­ri­fices, achieve­ments and con­tri­bu­tions of our peo­ple, we are re­mind­ed that progress does not hap­pen by ac­ci­dent. It hap­pens be­cause peo­ple pre­pare them­selves to lead, to serve and to build.

While Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions brought joy to Do­mini­ca, Car­ri­a­cou and Trinidad, Grena­da marked 52 years of in­de­pen­dence un­der the theme “An­chored in Faith, Guid­ed by Pur­pose.” St Lu­cia cel­e­brat­ed 47 years with the pow­er­ful words “Dou­van Ansam” —Go­ing For­ward To­geth­er.

Those themes—faith, pur­pose and mov­ing for­ward to­geth­er— are not just na­tion­al mot­tos. They are co­op­er­a­tive prin­ci­ples. And they are at the heart of some­thing many of you may have heard about but may not ful­ly un­der­stand: CaribDE.

So, what ex­act­ly is CaribDE?

CaribDE stands for Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Ed­u­ca­tion. It is a re­gion­al lead­er­ship pro­gramme de­signed specif­i­cal­ly for peo­ple with­in the Cred­it Union Move­ment—board mem­bers, man­agers, su­per­vi­sors, staff and emerg­ing lead­ers. But it is not just an­oth­er sem­i­nar.

CaribDE is im­mer­sive. It chal­lenges par­tic­i­pants to think dif­fer­ent­ly about gov­er­nance, strat­e­gy, mem­ber ser­vice and com­mu­ni­ty im­pact. It strength­ens their un­der­stand­ing of co­op­er­a­tive phi­los­o­phy while sharp­en­ing their prac­ti­cal lead­er­ship skills. And most im­por­tant­ly, it push­es par­tic­i­pants to de­sign and im­ple­ment re­al projects that ben­e­fit their cred­it union and its mem­bers.

In Jan­u­ary, TECU Cred­it Union in Trinidad launched its 80th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions with a two-day lead­er­ship sem­i­nar in part­ner­ship with CaribDE. That was not just an event. It was an in­vest­ment in lead­er­ship.

Across the re­gion, we are see­ing sim­i­lar mile­stones. The Guyana Pub­lic Ser­vice Cred­it Union is cel­e­brat­ing 62 years. CI­C­SA Cred­it Union in the Cay­man Is­lands marks 50 years of ser­vice. Longevi­ty like that does not hap­pen by chance. It hap­pens when in­sti­tu­tions com­mit to de­vel­op­ing ca­pa­ble, prin­ci­pled lead­ers. You might be ask­ing, “What does this have to do with me as a mem­ber?” Every­thing.

When your cred­it union in­vests in lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment, you ben­e­fit. You ben­e­fit from stronger gov­er­nance. You ben­e­fit from bet­ter de­ci­sion-mak­ing. You ben­e­fit from lead­ers who un­der­stand risk, strat­e­gy and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. You ben­e­fit from in­no­va­tion and im­proved mem­ber ser­vices.

We are al­so wit­ness­ing progress across the re­gion. In Ja­maica, sus­tained ad­vo­ca­cy by the League has re­sult­ed in the Bank of Ja­maica ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions from cred­it unions to ac­cess the Re­al Time Gross Set­tle­ment Sys­tem and the Au­to­mat­ed Clear­ing House. That is a sig­nif­i­cant step in mod­ernising the sec­tor.

At the same time, the spir­it of co­op­er­a­tion con­tin­ues to shine. Fol­low­ing hur­ri­cane dam­age in Ja­maica, the Ja­maica Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League re­ceived a con­tain­er of sup­plies from the Cred­it Unions of Trinidad and To­ba­go through CULTT. That is co­op­er­a­tion among co­op­er­a­tives in ac­tion.

Per­haps the most ex­cit­ing part of CaribDE is see­ing what grad­u­ates ac­tu­al­ly ac­com­plish. Re­cent­ly com­plet­ed projects in­clude the “Car­ni­val Mix­er” ini­tia­tive by Kervin John and Saman­tha Ro­drigues of UWI Cred­it Union in Trinidad and To­ba­go, and the in­tro­duc­tion of Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy at TA Mar­ryshow Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege in Grena­da through the ded­i­ca­tion of Ma­to­nia Munroe. These projects did not re­main ideas on pa­per. They were im­ple­ment­ed. They served mem­bers and com­mu­ni­ties. And the mo­men­tum con­tin­ues.

CaribDE 57, sched­uled for March 15–21, will make his­to­ry as the first De­vel­op­ment Ed­u­ca­tion class to be staged in South Amer­i­ca. Host­ed by the Guyana Co-op­er­a­tive Cred­it Union League, it has al­ready at­tract­ed 40 lead­ers from one league and 18 cred­it unions. That tells us some­thing im­por­tant.

Our re­gion un­der­stands that ed­u­ca­tion is not op­tion­al. Lead­er­ship is not ac­ci­den­tal. De­vel­op­ment is not au­to­mat­ic. When we say we are “An­chored in Faith, Guid­ed by Pur­pose” and mov­ing “Dou­van Ansam,” we must al­so com­mit to prepar­ing lead­ers who can car­ry that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. CaribDE rep­re­sents that com­mit­ment. It is about build­ing lead­ers who will pro­tect your sav­ings, stew­ard your in­vest­ments wise­ly, and en­sure that your cred­it union re­mains strong for gen­er­a­tions to come. And that is some­thing every mem­ber can be proud of. I am CaribDE24.