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Over 200 Industry Leaders Join Credit Union Webinar

Last month, Bradford District Credit Union partnered with Bradford Council Public Health to host a special webinar with international speakers focused on the cost of living crisis which currently is engulfing the nation.

 

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Friday 26 January 2024

Last month, Bradford District Credit Union partnered with Bradford Council Public Health to host a special webinar with international speakers focused on the cost of living crisis which currently is engulfing the nation.

264 people booked on made up of local and national delegates including 43 different ABCUL credit unions, several US credit unions, Irish credit unions and some non-affiliated credit unions as well as UK local councils, voluntary organisations and visitors from around the world.

The webinar started off with a warm welcome from the Lord Mayor of Bradford, Cllr Martin Love and Leader of the Bradford Council, Cllr Susan Hinchliffe. They both thanked BDCU for how much they have done for residents in Bradford and for tackling poverty in the district

Katie Pickett, Professor of Etymology, York University gave the national picture of how 2.2 million households are in fuel poverty.

Two of the Bradford District Credit Union’s flagship projects were then discussed – FoodSavers with Julie Thompson to provide low-cost food pantries with saving into the Credit Union and UniformSavers with Scott Leech on a program to help single families save for school uniforms – both with funding from Bradford Council.

FoodSavers have 14 pantries across the district where over 250 people buy a low cost bag of shopping for £6 with £1 going into the credit union to get people into a savings habit.

UniformSavers is a project that helped 285 people save for a school uniform with a £100 incentive for savers and administered between the Bradford Council Customer Service Centre and the credit union. As a result, after the incentive was paid, 60% continued to save and Bradford Council has agreed to fund UniformSavers #2 launching later this month. Both speakers gave moving stories of how the schemes helped people in need get into a savings habit.

CEO of ABCUL Robert Kelly introduced USA speakers Rene Vargas from Inclusiv and Chad Helminak from the National Credit Union Foundation. With the international theme this year being ‘Empower Your Financial Future with a Credit Union’, Robert talked about how a group of Credit Unions, including BDCU, went to Madison, USA in August to visit Chad and Rene’s colleague Pablo and he asked them to tell us more about the ‘Community Development Credit Union’ (CDCU) movement in the USA as bi-laterally share our learning.

Commenting on the important community work, which BDCU provide, ABCUL CEO, Robert Kelly said: “BDCU is a model for working in partnership with a Local Authority and the huge response in bookings for this ‘Tackling the Cost of Living Crisis’ webinar demonstrates the need for more innovative partnership projects like FoodSavers and UniformSavers that are vital in helping vulnerable people at such a time as this”.

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