KwaZulu-Natal Association Financial Literacy Association International Child & Youth Finance Summit

09 Mar 2014

KwaZulu-Natal Association Financial Literacy Association International Child & Youth Finance Summit

The KwaZulu-Natal Finance MEC, Ina Cronjé, who is also the champion of the KwaZulu-Natal Association Financial Literacy Association (KZNFLA), cordially invites all the media houses to the first International Child and Youth Finance Summit in South Africa.

The details of the two day summit are follows:
Date: 13 to14 March 2014
Time: 08h00 - 16h30 (both days)
Venue: Elangeni Hotel Durban

Media briefing details
Date: 13 March 2014
Time: 10h00
Venue: Elangeni Hotel Durban

Kindly RSVP before 12h00 on Monday, 10 March 2014

Some children excel in the arts, others are good athletes and some are academic high flyers. However, there are many talents that don’t come naturally. Managing our own money and creating our own wealth is a skill we all have to learn. We also have to learn healthy money habits, moving from an attitude of “I want it and I want it now!” to a behaviour of saving and investing and creating our own wealth. “As the twig is bent, so is the tree inclined.” When we don’t learn the skill of managing our money and healthy financial habits from an early age, we end up in debt, depending on our family and government to keep us alive.

MEC Cronjé, said that children and youth constitute almost half of the population. “They are the present and the future consumers and the business leaders of tomorrow. We have to include our young people in decisions on financial matters. Their financial future is the future of our Province and country,” she said, emphasising the need for South Africa to have a youth finance strategy, i.e. a plan to include children and young people in financial matters.

This need for direction in child and youth finance has now resulted in Provincial Treasury and members of the KwaZulu-Natal Financial Literacy Association (KZNFLA) [1], hosting the first International Child and Youth Finance Summit in South Africa. Key participants include National Treasury, Child & Youth Finance International, the Financial Services Board and The Banking Association SA, as well as the Departments of Basic and Higher Education. The National Consumer Education Strategy will also be launched by the National Minister for Finance, Mr Pravin Gordhan.

Policy makers (treasury, regulatory bodies, academic institutions, non-governmental organisation (NGOs), business, banks and researchers) and 200 young people (in school and out of school) will be discussing issues, such as a youth finance strategy, financial education in the curriculum, youth friendly finance products, entrepreneurship, reaching young people effectively and monitoring and evaluating financial education programmes for young people.

On the second day of the summit the young people will present to the policy makers their ideas on:

Do I need a formal financial education and why?
I want to learn more about financial literacy through
Why must I save? Which product is right for me?
I want to make my own million. I want to be a successful entrepreneur. How do I become a change agent in my community?

The young people will include learners from Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, while policy makers from Ghana, Ethiopia and Uganda will also be participating in the Summit, which will form part of the Global Money Week activities (March 10th - March 17th 2014), coordinated by Child and Youth Finance International. The activities at the Summit include a webinar with a youth finance expert in Guatemala, the kick-off of the 2014 KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Grade 11 Speech Contest on Finance and visits to banks and successful entrepreneurial businesses.

The summit provides an ideal opportunity to review current practice in financial education for In School and Out of School Youth. It will be a highly focused forum that will identify strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement in the financial education area for young people and will also deal with financial inclusion, as well as promoting careers in finance. To this end 25 exhibitors will be on site, displaying youth finance products and information on careers in finance.

Partners and sponsors:

1.  ABSA Bank
2.  Aflatoun
3. Capital Media
4.  Child and Youth Finance International
5.  Consolidated
6. Durban University of Technology
7. Financial Services Board
8. First National Bank
9.   Ithala Development Finance Corporation
10. KZN Department of Education
11. Morar Incorporated
12. National Treasury
13. Nedbank
14. Old Mutual
15. Postbank
16. Provincial Treasury & KZNFLA
17. Small Enterprise Development Agency (SEDA)
18. Standard Bank
19. The Banking Association South Africa
20. University of Kwazulu-Natal