By Emma Charlston, Marketing and Communications Coordinator CUFA

For someone who ‘never wins anything’, Jessica Stevens of My Credit Union has scored herself a $5000 scholarship thanks to NGS Super. Dee Duke, Relationship Manager at NGS Super, took the chance to surprise Jessica at her workplace on Friday, 7 February 2014 to present the prize. The NGS Super Scholarship, now in its third year, provides an invaluable opportunity to ones of its members in the credit union industry to attend the CUFA Leadership Challenge Program. At just 26, Jessica is raising two beautiful children, is in the process of building her dream home with her husband Chris and has reached a point where she is looking at the bigger picture. Jess explains “so many people in the world struggle to find things to be thankful for, and – even though I am just one person – surely I can make some difference to the imbalance that so obviously occurs across the globe.” On May 1, Jessica and her fellow Challengers will head off to the southern wilds of Fiji’s Kadavu Island to kayak 50kms before participating in a community service project for and with the Island communities of Vacalea and Daku. After completing the challenging kayak component, participants will head back to mainland Suva, where CUFA’s subsidiary, OCCUL, have their headquarters. OCCUL services the greater Pacific region’s credit union movement, providing technical assistance such as bookkeeping training and most importantly giving the movement representation and a voice. The Challengers have all started their fundraising and we can look forward to some great events in the coming months! Keep an eye out for events in your area. If you would like to support or register for the Fiji Challenge please head to our website and follow the links! Applications are closing soon! Thank you to all those who applied for the Scholarship and congratulations again to Jess!