The Cli­co Cred­it Union has launched its youth arm.

Pres­i­dent Ashraff Ali, who spear­head­ed the ini­tia­tive ex­plained this was part of his vi­sion for the fu­ture, as he high­light­ed the piv­otal role of young mem­bers in dri­ving in­no­va­tion and bridg­ing in­ter­gen­er­a­tional gaps.

Dur­ing his ad­dress at the re­cent launch which took place at the Brix Ho­tel, Port-of-Spain, Ali al­so hailed the work of the cred­it union’s ed­u­ca­tion com­mit­tee, who he not­ed has recog­nised the vi­tal im­por­tance of en­gag­ing and em­pow­er­ing young mem­bers in shap­ing the fu­ture of the cred­it union.

Say­ing that youth in­volve­ment was im­por­tant, as this would of­fer fresh per­spec­tives and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to chal­leng­ing the sta­tus quo, Ali added youths were the ar­chi­tects of the cred­it union’s fu­ture suc­cess.

CEO of the or­gan­i­sa­tion Hol­land Bronte-Tin­kew echoed the pres­i­dent’s sen­ti­ments, as he em­pha­sised the sig­nif­i­cance of in­vest­ing in youth and build­ing them for both the present and the fu­ture.

Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings, who was al­so present at the launch, hailed the fore­sight of the cred­it union.

“If not young peo­ple, then who? In­vest­ing in youth is just about the best in­vest­ment you can take up so as to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity,” he said.

Mean­while, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment who al­so spoke, stat­ed the im­por­tance and the val­ue of sav­ing as she shared her pos­i­tive per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence of hav­ing been a mem­ber of a cred­it union for more than 30 years.

Mar­itza Da Sil­va, se­nior man­ag­er of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment and mar­ket­ing at CCU reaf­firmed that the ob­jec­tives of the youth arm was to em­pow­er, ed­u­cate and sup­port youths in their jour­ney to­wards fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence.

She ex­plained the es­tab­lish­ment of this plat­form un­der­scored com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy, youth en­gage­ment, and en­tre­pre­neur­ship with­in com­mu­ni­ty.

The cred­it union ap­point­ed a sev­en-mem­ber youth arm com­mit­tee who re­ceived their cer­tifi­cates and let­ters of ap­point­ment.