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UK launch, with a little Divine intervention

09-02-2011

Thanks to over 400 UK individuals and organisations who have so far invested in Oikocredit, there is now a well proven appetite for investment from the UK. This led to the public launch of Oikocredit in October at St Martin-in-the-Fields, close to Trafalgar Square in London.

 

© Tom Bamber Photography, click here for more photos

 

“Oikocredit has at the heart of its logo the ecumenical ship, so Launch is very much the right word”, said Patrick Hynes (Oikocredit’s UK and Ireland representative). Patrick introduced the meeting, talking about the ship of solidarity and the meaning of “Oikocredit”, a mix of Greek and Latin: “Oikos”, referring to the world community and credit not only referring to loans, but to the Latin, to believe”. So Oikocredit literally means: to believe in the world community, empowering people with access to financial services.

The audience heard from Mariam Dao, Oikocredit's regional manager for French speaking Africa, who spoke with admiration of the remarkable story of the Cocovico women’s market – a cooperative of women who have taken a loan to build a market for themselves and 5,000 other marker traders in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The wider community benefits of the market’s health centre and crèche facilities were equally impressive.

Ben Simmes (Director of Social Performance) spoke about the work Oikocredit is doing in ensuring our financing reaches the right people and makes a difference. This led into an interesting round of questions and discussion.

Sophi Tranchell, managing director of Divine (a project partner of Oikocredit) inspired the audience with her talk about the Divine chocolate company which is 45% owned by a cooperative of Ghanaian farmers called Kuapa Koko. “Until Oikocredit came along, the farmers were getting a very poor deal”, Sophi said. To finish, Sophi officially launched Oikocredit in the UK with the gift of a beautiful fair trade chocolate cake.

To experience the event in pictures please visit Tom Bamber’s flickr site. Tom is a professional photographer, who went from taking part in this event to volunteering as Oikocredit’s photographer for the study tour to Guatemala.

Investors have remembered the event for the remarkable stories of people making a living in difficult circumstances, the rich sounds of the singers echoing through St Martin’s crypt and for the delicious chocolate cake! Thankfully some have taken the further step to invest or invest more in Oikocredit and made the event really worthwhile. Thank you.

 

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