High Commissioner Named Joe Biden Development Educator for Caribbean

High Commissioner to the United Kingdom (UK), Her Excellency Aloun Ndombet Assamba, is the recipient of the ‘Joe Biden Development Educator of the Year 2014-2015’ Award for the Caribbean.

The award, presented by the International Credit Union Leadership Development and Education Foundation, was made at a ceremony in London on Saturday, November 14.

The High Commissioner was nominated for the honour by the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions.

High Commissioner Ndombet Assamba, who was also the special guest speaker at the award function, spoke of her lifelong connection with the credit union movement.

She said she become a credit union member as a teenager and had a long career at the City of Kingston Co-operative Credit Union (COK), which she joined as legal officer and rose to the level of General Manager in 1994, a post she held until 2002.

She also spoke of the integral role that credit unions continue to play in the social and economic development of Jamaica, noting that 60 per cent of the adult population or more than 920,000 Jamaicans are members of a credit union.

The Joe Biden Award is named after the US Vice President, in recognition of his support of the credit union movement and his co-sponsorship of the legislation, which allows for a million dollar annual grant to private voluntary organisations in  the United States of America (USA).

This award is the second to be presented to the High Commissioner this year. In July, she received the 2015 World Council of Credit Unions Distinguished Services Award (DSA) at a special ceremony in Denver, Colorado.