Make an Impact

By: Iman Abdi Ali

We all have a responsibility to our community and more importantly to ourselves to make a positive difference in whatever way we can. This may be just taking the time to educate ourselves about a certain topic or designing a grand scale project that can make many people’s lives better. We just have to take some time off from our daily routines and become aware of issues around us. If we do this, I believe we all have philanthropic feelings that urge us to be selfless and do something to solve these problems.

One of the major problems that concerns most communities is HIV/AIDS. This monstrous disease has affected us all in one way or another. And even though there are many different programs to fight against HIV and AIDS, I believe the ones that can ultimately succeed are the ones that deal with the youth, as they are enthusiastic and energetic to learn new things and change accordingly unlike adults who are hesitant to embrace change easily. Statistics indicate that the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS is among people aged 15-29 of age group. Who are these people? The Youth!! So based on this premises, we need to initiate timely programs that target particularly the youth to have any legitimate fight against HIV/AIDS!!

I recently got acquainted with an organization called Anti-AIDS Teacher’s Association of Zambia (AATAZ); the organization has several programmes that deal with the youth. In one of these programmes, they pick 5-10 children (9-19 age group) from a number of high schools in different parts of the country and train them in a 3 day programme. During this period they mainly train them on life skills (eg. self confidence, assertiveness and critical thinking) . These are of paramount importance for a person to possess particularly at a young age; however, they are qualities that many people lack. It is lack of these life skills I believe that most youth find themselves engaging in alcohol/drug abuse and sexual activities that consequently could lead to HIV infection. So by armouring these youths with life skills, AATAZ is minimizing their chances of HIV infection greatly while also making them responsible and conscientious at the same time.

The programme does not stop there. The trained youths go back to their schools and create a club called “Catch Them Young”. They recruit their fellow pupils and share their newly acquired knowledge. The club members meet regularly and organise events such as drama and poems on HIV/AIDS and life skills that they present to the rest of the school community sharing essential information in a digestible manner.

This program has made a huge impact on many of the children’s life. By the end of the training, the youths are completely different, with a more precise and powerful insight into the world around them and ready to achieve success for their communities and themselves. They have an obligation to share whatever knowledge they have been imparted with, with people around them. They cannot just sit back and leave this for someone else to do.

So I strongly believe people, especially the youth should be very keen to be involved in their communities and not just be in their small little box thinking me, me me!! The sooner that they step out of their comfort zone and experience life in someone else’s shoe the closer they become to being a ‘’complete’’ person!!

The writer of this article Iman Abdi Ali 16 , is at Lusaka International Community School (LICS) and a member of the Children’s News Agency.  

 

FINACIAL EDUCATION FOR CHIILDREN AND YOUTH ‘ZAMBIA’S HOPE REALIZED’

By Chrispin Sinyangwe

A survey by Finscope in 2009,showed that out of the total Zambian populous only about 37% had access to formal financial services. This posed a threat to both the financial security of the country and its citizens.

Research also showed that financially literacy skills benefit everyone, whatever their income or age. Good financial literacy skills help individuals and families make the most of their opportunities, meet their goals and secure their financial wellbeing, also contributing to the economic health of society.

With Zambia’s financial literacy been low in urban areas and extremely low rural areas, its citizen were at risk of been financially exploited. Having easy access to unconventional means of borrowing money from places like loan sharks, knowledge on financial products and services being low exposed Zambian citizens to different types of financial exploitation. With little or no knowledge and the rapidly changing economy, coupled with complex financial decisions, makes personal money management more challenging than ever before. As a result it was decided upon to have a strategy to improve financial literacy of the country.

The Nation Strategy on Financial Education for Zambia was commission by Bank of Zambia and co-founded by the UK’s Department for International Development’s (DFID) Financial Education Fund (FEF) and by FinMark Trust. The primary objective of the strategy is to empower Zambians with knowledge, understanding, skills, motivation and confidence to help them secure positive financial outcome for themselves and their families by 2017.

Children being the future, need to understand more and more about finance, if Zambia is to achieve its goal of being a prosperous middle income country by 2030, children are a key component to this realization.

Financial Education Coordinating Unit of the Bank of Zambia Programme’s Coordinator    Mrs Kabinda Kakoma Kawesha said the National Strategy has three approaches to reach children. Firstly through the school system, this has been done by integrating financial education concepts in the national curricula which will be rolled out next year.

 A number of institutions have set up clubs providing extra curricula activities reaching out to children and the youth, we are also seeking partnership with higher learning institutions, to see how those programmes can be provided to their students, she further lamented.

She stressed the fact that financial education was not only going to be implement by financial institutions but also NGO’s  and with the  partnership with NGO’s having rural outreach programmes, that have been integrated with financial education. This will enable those in rural areas have access to financial education.

Meanwhile, Mwiza Zulu, 14, a pupil at Libala Secondary School  expressed great pleasure at the move by Bank of Zambia and its co-operating partners on the development of the National Strategy.

“If children grow up with financial literacy, they become more responsible with money, promoting accountability and responsibility among children, also reducing corruption, as children are taught core values of Finance”, She said.   

The realization of the need for financial education has brought about hope for the future, a financially fit country is a country masked in wealth. It is therefore the collective responsibility of the Government, its co-operating partners and the Zambian citizen to ensure financial education will contribute adequately to the six national development plan (SNDP), which aims to actualise the aspirations of vision 2030 under the theme of “sustained economic growth and poverty reducation”.    

The writer of this article Chrispin Sinyangwe 16, is at Lusaka High School and a member of the Children’s News Agency.