The Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) has designated the month of October as Financial Information Month Festival across the members of the currency union.
ECCB Country Manager here in Antigua and Barbuda, Karel Forde-Harrigan explained that the bank is working along with its partners within the currency union to organize events that promote financial literacy.
“Each country within the ECCU uses the month of October to spread information on financial education, to aim at improving financial literacy amongst our people as well as to provide information on savings and investments, which is, in fact, our theme for this year. In fact, our sub-focus is: ‘financial investing; from savers to investors’,” she explained.
According to Forde-Harrigan, the overarching theme for the month is; ‘Financial empowerment through education’.
She disclosed that the main activity for the month will be a scavenger hunt on October 19 and the ECCB is inviting teams from businesses and organisations to register to participate.
On Wednesday, ECCB joined the Caribbean Union Bank in hosting a group of students from the Post-Millennial Academy at the bank to get an understanding of the workings of a financial institution.
Additionally, the event was used to promote a book published by S. Latoya Weste, whose background is in the financial sector, entitled ‘Aunty Honey’s Money’, which is geared towards introducing children to understanding and appreciating the value of money at an early stage.
General Manager of CUB, Karen Richardson, said the bank is happy to partner with the ECCB in promoting the activities of Financial Information Month Festival and in particular to help promote the book written by Weste among young people.
“CUB is part of the Antigua and Barbuda Bankers Association and as part of that we decided to do two things; 1. Rather than go to the schools, we wanted to bring to schools to us so that they can see first-hand how a bank works and 2. We wanted to support Weste by presenting copies of her book to the visiting children,” Richardson stated.
She noted that for CB, it is important that financial literacy starts at a young age as we are of the view that if they are educated about money at that age, when they become adults they will be financially responsible.
“This was a great activity for us and we are happy to join with the ECCB to pull it off,” she stated.
Speaking with Point Express, Weste said the motivation for writing the book came from ‘necessity being the mother of invention’. “I wanted a similar resource for my own child when she was interested in money as I truly believe in ‘training up a child in the way that she should go’. I was teaching her everything else and I felt that part of that training ought to be about money so that she could develop good money habits at an early age. I have been in the financial sector for far too long and have seen too many people fall through the cracks simply because they lacked financial knowledge. Unfortunately, I could not find anything that would provide the information that I sought; so I decided to write a book myself and Aunty Honey’s Money is the result,” she explained.
Weste worked for over a decade in the banking sector and she is now currently employed at a major insurance company.
