Kids and Money: Increasing a Village’s Financial Literacy

A few months back I was looking for resources on children’s financial literacy online (gotta start 'em young!) and stumbled upon a really great workbook from the Cleveland Fed- available in English here and Spanish here.  Available for free- printed or mailed, in English or Spanish- this workbook is awesome.  It’s a great general overview of money management for late elementary school aged children and covers money and finance in three parts: earn, spend, and save. 

Since kids generally seem to be more open to new ideas and are still forming their long-term habits and opinions, I was especially excited introduce this information to the elementary school classes in my site.  My friend Zoe, who my community loves, came to visit and help out with the charla and was a ton of help.  I’ve noticed that community members, kids included, really seem to put more weight on things I teach if I bring in someone from outside the community. 

We spent two hours teaching about 20 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th graders about how they can use their skills to earn a little bit of extra money, why they shouldn’t spend everything they have, and how to be an informed buyer.  I was really proud of how well they did on their exercises, and am excited to help them with their plans to earn money in the future.  One of the older children is even saving money to buy a piglet to raise and sell.  If he grows a nice sized pig into full maturity, he could stand to earn almost $100- a 300% return on investment!

I’m going to be going back for a little follow-up and homework review this coming week.  Hopefully I’ll find book bags full of completed activities and minds eager to learn more about finance!  As always, if you’ve seen any resources that you think we could benefit by, please send me an email at abbyexplores@gmail.com.  We’re always excited to try new things!

 

GAD Camp 2014

As I mentioned in my previous post, one of the great aspects of Peace Corps Panama is the opportunity we have to work outside of our specific sector to help improve both our communities and the country as a whole.  Though every volunteer has different priorities and desires for these secondary projects, many choose to work with GAD, Gender and Development. 

Here in Panama there are opportunities to organize smaller community-based GAD activities such as health and youth education seminars, but there also several larger events held throughout the country each year.  One of the longest running and most successful events is the National GAD Youth Camp.  Teens in every village which Peace Corps has a presence are eligible to attend, and spots are highly coveted.  This year I applied to be a Volunteer facilitator, and was really excited to be chosen to attend (along with two of my kiddos!)

There was a race to put on the opposite gender's clothing; I don't normally dress like this.  

We attended a TOT (Training of Trainers) shortly before our annual Thanksgiving celebration where we learned all about the week-long seminar and how to facilitate our own sessions.  While I was assigned to teach a charla on Values, other volunteers received topics such as Self-Esteem, Goals, Career Planning and Sexual Health. 

Finally, the week of GAD Camp arrived and I hiked out of site at 6:15 in the morning (yikes!) along with the two teenage girls who had been selected to represent our town.  After a very long day of travel, we arrived in central Panama at nearly 10:00 pm that night.  To accommodate the growing number of applicants, separate weeks were held for different provinces this year, meaning that the camp we attended hosted campers (and volunteers) from Bocas del Toro, Chiriquí, Veraguas, and the Comarca Ngobe-Bugle. 

Though all of the seminars were undoubtedly important for the kids to hear, for me the greatest part of the week was seeing them come out of their shells and get to know people and places that were completely new to them.  Before GAD camp, the  two teenagers from my town had never even left their families or their provinces!

 

It was also really interesting to watch interactions between the latinos and the indigenous teens.  Though racism and bullying is sadly common between the two groups in Panama, it was incredibly encouraging to see them genuinely curious about each other’s cultures.  There was even a talent show act in which they started out with a very basic and traditional indigenous dance but later burst into a latino style break-dance!

GAD Camp was tons of fun- for the campers and the facilitators- and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to see our work in action.  Working in agribusiness, I'm starting to get used to having to wait for results, so to see the bigger smiles and budding self-confidence after less than a week was a huge blessing and morale booster!