Launched by the Grameen Crédit Agricole and Crédit Agricole S.A. Foundation in June 2018, Solidarity Banker is a skills volunteering programme open to all Crédit Agricole Group employees in support of microfinance institutions or impact companies supported by the Foundation. To celebrate its first year, the programme was honoured at the Foundation’s Friends Club Meeting N°4, held on 9 July at Crédit Agricole’s Campus in Montrouge.
Solidarity bankers: balance sheet of the first year
The meeting was rich in exchanges, beginning with the speeches of Jean-Marie Sander, President of the Foundation, and Eric Campos, Executive Director of the Foundation and CSR Director of Crédit Agricole S.A. Recalling the history of the Foundation and the various challenges it faces, both stressed the importance of providing technical support to the Foundation’s partners through mechanisms such as the Solidarity Banker.
Carolina Herrera, Director of Communication and Partnerships of the Foundation, then presented the framework of the Solidarity Banker programme. With field missions lasting one to two weeks, Crédit Agricole Group employees support the Foundation’s partners to meet the technical support needs expressed by the beneficiary organisations. Since the beginning of the program, 12 missions have been launched: a great success that demonstrates the strong commitment of employees and the Group.
The next Solidarity bankers
To testify to this, Violette Cubier and Céline Hyon-Naudin, Investment Officers at the Foundation, presented the next missions alongside two Solidarity Bankers. Sarah Belbachir of Crédit Agricole SA and Caman Kamougue of Crédit Agricole CIB are the two solidarity bankers who, supported by the Group’s entities, will travel to Morocco and Haiti this summer to support Al Karama, a microfinance institution, and Palmis Enèji, a social impact company, respectively. They presented the objectives of the missions and highlighted their desire to contribute to a project with a strong social impact as well as personal and professional enrichment as the main motivations to become Solidarity Bankers.
The meeting ended with a presentation of the Foundation’s Strategic Plan 2019-2022 by Hélène Keraudren-Baube, Administrative and Financial Director, who recalled our three strategic pillars: strengthening microfinance expertise, developing the resilience of rural economies and promoting impact finance within the Group.