FINANCIAL LITERACY SPELLING BEE ACTIVATION MPUMALANGA

News

FINANCIAL LITERACY SPELLING BEE ACTIVATION MPUMALANGA – 2015

Publication Date: 03/06/2015

PRESS RELEASE
Mpumalanga learners are in for a special treat this coming Youth Month – June, when The Banking Association South Africa through its flagship generic financial literacy programme StarSaver™ to teach children to save, hosts the 2nd FinLit Spelling Bee activation following the Inaugural Finlit Spelling Bee in Kimberly, in the Northern Cape province marking the 8th annual national launch of StarSaver™ formerly known as Teach Children to Save South Africa™ on 9 March to kick-start Global Money Week. The anticipated spelling competition will take place as follows:

Date: Wednesday, 17 June 2015
Venue: Bongani Mountain Lodge, Mpumalanga www.bonganimountainlodge.co.za
Time : 10h00 – 13h00

The host of the day will be “ProVerb” Tebogo Thekisho, the Idols SA presenter and co-producer, hip hop artist, radio and TV personality, and StarSaver™ Ambassador. The StarSaver™ programme e with 23 banks and 43 financial institutions participating is pleased to be back in Mpumalanga after a resounding successful launch of the programme in July 2013 graced by the MEC for Education, Reginah Mhaule. The programme continues to support the efforts of the Mpumalanga Department of Education aligned with the Economic Management Science (EMS) subject of the school curriculum. StarSaver™ is a national savings programme that primarily targets learners and has teachers, parents and volunteers as the secondary target group.
FinLit Spelling Bee is the 1st ever spelling competition focusing on financial literacy and assists with language development. Spelling is a gateway to reading and writing and the spelling bee will improve learners’ retention of financial concepts that touch on our daily lives. The FinLit Spelling Bee competition words are drawn from accounting and business science dictionary. Grades 7 to 9 learners from six schools in the province will compete by spelling financial terms of varying difficulty.

The FinLit Spelling Bee came on the heels of the Department of Basic Education’s Spelling Bee South Africa programme, which was launched in 2014 for the intermediate phase, Grades 4 to 6. The Banking Association South Africa supported the Gauteng Department of Education to roll-out their 2014 spelling bee and saw an opportunity to augment it and designed FinLit Spelling Bee for Grades 7 to 9 adding the financial literacy twist.

“This programme resonates well with our endeavour to instil confidence, broaden the horizons and inculcate entrepreneurial prowess of our young children. I also wish to express my profound appreciation to the Banking Association South Africa and its partners for conceptualising this idea since it rekindles healthy and productive engagements between our learners. The Mpumalanga Department of Education supports this initiative.” MEC Reginah Mhaule

The programme now rebranded StarSaver™ in line with the aspirational target youth market, reaching for the stars, aims to foster a culture of saving in youth and promote volunteerism in the financial sector. It advocates Learn, Earn, Save, Spend and Invest—“LESSI” – as its wealth cycle, having reached over 1.2 million learners nationwide.
The day’s activities are packed with the StarSaver™ Ambassadors – Mpumi Mbethe, the radio and TV personality and Sibusiso Vilane, the adventurer and mountaineer, 1st black person to summit Mount Everest and conquer the 7 poles – the 7 highest peaks of each continent, who will bring the importance of saving with panache on June 17th. This exciting event hosted in collaboration with the Department of Education, Mpumalanga, will see winners walk away with various prizes.