Cultivating Dreams: Vancity helps youth meet their financial goals
“Learning about money management is easy when you are having fun.”
These encouraging words were spoken by a student who took part in the “PowerPlay Money Managers” programme at a school in the Vancouver area. The programme, sponsored by Vancity credit union, seeks to help children learn about real-life financial issues in a fun and interesting way.
Vancity is Canada's largest credit union, with $9.0 billion in assets, over 300,000 members, and 42 branches throughout Greater Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and Victoria. Vancity owns Citizens Bank of Canada, serving members across the country by telephone, ATM, and the Internet. Both Vancity and Citizens Bank are guided by a commitment to corporate social responsibility, and to improve the quality of life in the communities where members live and work. The PowerPlay Money Managers programme, is just one of many ways Vancity works to involve youth in co-operative financial planning.
With different approaches for different age groups, Vancity sponsors financial education programmes that are relevant to young children and senior high school students alike. By focusing first on helping students define financial components of their own goals, the Vancity programme helps students understand that using financial management skills can be an empowering process.
To involve elementary school children, Vancity has created an innovative Youth Credit Union system where students in grade six and seven function as bank tellers, office staff, and board members. The other students, including students from earlier grades can then become members of these co-operatives and learn how to manage a bank account.
Through partnerships with local schools, the programme has expanded to include 19 youth credit unions serving more than 1,800 students across the Lower Mainland. Together, they’ve saved more than $850,000 – one loonie at a time.
The programme started in 1996 with the twin goals of teaching kids about savings and money management, while helping them to build their confidence, leadership and math skills. To date, it seems to be an extremely effective way to empower youth and teach them how to manage money to fit their dreams, rather than fitting their dreams into an unkempt financial situation.
For older youth, Vancity has engaged PowerPlay Strategies Inc. (specialists in youth-oriented financial education) to offer a slightly different programme, but on the same principles of empowerment and encouragement. The PowerPlay Money Managers programme, which is designed for Grade 10 students, introduces relevant financial topics to students to help them build practical life skills.
By encouraging students to contemplate what would be involved in obtaining a car loan, planning effectively for post-secondary education or other tangible relevant goals, they empower students to set goals, and make positive choices that bring them closer to those goals.
Students learn about different methods of financial planning, including budgeting, dealing with loans, managing income, and investing. Further, students are encouraged to lead family discussions in order to integrate what they are learning into the lives of their families in a meaningful way.
Not only have students appreciated the useful and enjoyable nature of the projects, but teachers have found that teaching the program is rewarding as well. Marianne Marcario from Handsworth Secondary School comments:
This programme was easy to use, and it helped me achieve my goals with Planning 10. The engaging activities and group discussions activate the learning process. My students had fun exploring the world of finance, were presented with real-life situations and were inspired to take action at home.
In order to take their support of young adults one step further, Vancity has also sponsored the Generation Y Entrepreneurship programme, which was created by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation (CYBF). The Foundation, which is a national non-profit organization, provides resources, mentoring, and loans to youth aged eighteen to twenty-four. In the past, the Foundation has split its resources between support and loans, trying to balance financial opportunity for youth with the importance of long-term mentoring, and targeted skill training programmes. This is where Vancity came on board providing much needed loan capital to the programme and allowing the Foundation to free up resources to expand and further their existing support programmes. Engaging in the complex competitive global market place can be a daunting thought for many youth. But with the confidence and skill building combination provided by Vancity’s “PowerPlay Money Managers” programme, PowerPlay Strategies Inc, and Youth Entrepreneurship programme, Vancity is truly cultivating dreams.
Erik Haensel is a researcher with the British Columbia Institute for Co-operative Studies and is registered in a History and Environmental Studies programme at the University of Victoria.
