DE Training April 2010 Pre-Training Assignments

DE Training is just days away. We hope you're keeping up with your reading. This is just a quick note to check in with you and provide you with your final pre-training assignment.

In the last mailing, you received articles on issues that would stimulate your thinking in preparation of some provocative and challenging discussions. This assignment focuses on the 12 development issues identified by the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU). Working together can make a real difference in the lives of people in our towns, cities, country, and the world. These development issues provide us with dilemmas and barriers, but more importantly, they provide us with challenges to overcome. Click here for a list and summary of the development issues that will be discussed in-depth and used throughout the training. They are:

Access to Credit
Health
Appropriate Technology
Housing
Democratic Institutions and Practices
Hunger
Education
Income Generation
Employment
Savings Mobilization
Environment
Women in Development

To find your individual assignment, click here.

Your final pre-training assignment is to research your assigned “DEVELOPMENT ISSUE” and find at least one article that pertains to the development of credit unions on a global approach.

Check out the following websites as they may be helpful in researching your articles:

American City Business Journals
The Christian Science Monitor
CU360
The Internet Public Library
The Microfinance Gateway

From your articles, please come up with 1 or 2 points that you feel are most important to share with the group. If possible, be prepared to discuss how credit unions can play a role in this area for their members and their community, either in the U.S. or in developing countries.

It will be difficult to take a huge, societal development issue and boil it down to one or two points, but please do so. At least two other students will have been assigned the same topic and all of you will be asked to compare your findings and make a BRIEF (3 – 5 minutes) group presentation.

Please bring a copy of your article(s) with you for reference at the training session.

Don’t forget to pack your auction item(s), your checkbook, cash or credit cards for the Tuesday night fundraising auction. All proceeds benefit the National Credit Union Foundation’s Development Education Fund.

We look forward to seeing you very soon!