Financial and enterprise education came to life at Mansion House this month as young people, teachers and the great and good of the City of London gathered for the MyBnk Summer Showcase!
Hosted by patron, the Lord Mayor of London Roger Gifford, the evening was a chance to put impact centre stage and share stories from the frontline.
“How can it be?” the Mayor said, “in the world’s greatest financial capital we have personal debt in the trillions and hope to just muddle through. Quality financial education is the right of every child”.
Two of the youngest bankers in the nation took to the stage to tell a packed banquet hall how they exercised this right with their MyBnk experience.
15-year-olds Roj and Isra are MyBnkers at Walthamstow School for Girls’ microfinance scheme – MyBnk-in-a-Box. Before meeting our trainers they admit they did not know much about money let alone how to deal with it. After our training they and 60 other students have helped their entire school learn how to save and use interest free loans via their very own bank:
“MyBnk was a privileged educational experience that gave us banking skills, turned us into role models and taught us the value of team work – whilst learning how to manage our money”. Isra.
Their teacher and mentor, Hugh Marley, explained how in their three years with MyBnk, economic awareness had “gone through the roof across the school”.
As Assistant Head Teacher he said he was motivated to bring in experts due to some shocking statistics around pupils fears of debt and how it influences their life choices, like whether or not to go to university. At Walthamstow, over 600 young people have gone through our programmes, 50 used our enterprise projects to count towards their GCSE in Business and seen thousands of pounds raised for the school.
“MyBnk play a vital role helping us educate our young people and with personal finance education becoming compulsory in 2014, they offer a huge enrichment to our programme, translating learning in Maths and English and bringing money to life – I genuinely believe they have a key part to play in the future curriculum”. Hugh Marley, Assistant Head, Walthamstow School for Girls.
More soon….
