Maiava Atalina Ainuu Enari: Educating children about money matters
Opening remarks by Ms Maiava Atalina Ainuu Enari, Governor of the Central Bank of Samoa, at
the Awards Ceremony of the "Be Money Wi$e" Financial Literacy Poster Competition 2014, Apia,
14 March 2014.
* * *
Greetings and welcome to you all, dear parents, school principals and most importantly the
winning students of the 2014 Be Money Wi$e poster competition. As I look across the room to the
students, parents and principals/school reps,... without a doubt this is a Happy Friday for you all. It
gives me great pleasure to say that, this is also a Happy Friday for us at the Central Bank - we
are as much excited to reveal the winning poster entries as you are to be here today to receive
your awards!!
Talofa! Talofa Lava;
I am delighted to be here today, at the conclusion of an important initiative for the Central Bank, to
address this gathering and most especially the winners of - our first Be Money Wise Financial
Literacy Poster Competition. This competition is one of many programs undertaken by the Central
Bank to perform one of its mandates of promoting financial literacy under the "FINANCIAL
FITNESS" or "FIT for FINANCE" campaign.
The "Be Money WI$E Poster Competition 2014" was also conducted in collaboration with the
Global Money Week which is coordinated by Child & Youth Finance International. Global Money
Week takes place on the 10-17 March and is a worldwide celebration through events and
activities to help empower children and youth to be confident and responsible economic citizens.
During this week, children are encouraged to engage in learning on how money works, including
saving, creating livelihoods, gaining employment and entrepreneurship as well as living financially
smart lives. And so for Samoa's contribution to the event, the Central Bank decided to conduct a
financial literacy poster competition to encourage kids to use their imaginations and knowledge
about money choices, and help provide a creative outlet to demonstrate their knowledge.
For this year's poster competition theme "I can grow my money by..." myself and Mrs Vicseta
Meredith of Business System Limited had the pleasure AND the hard task of judging the entries.
We were very impressed with the quality of entries that were presented to us - so it pains us that
there are only a limited number of awards we can give out for the competition.
"Financial literacy" or "the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed
and effective decisions with all of their financial resources" is an important life-skill in our diverse
capacities as students, employees, consumers, savers and investors etc. In short, it is important
for all responsible economic citizens to have. - So why not start now and start young? Start young
on financial fitness...it will be fun and worth it! If we plant the financial literacy seed now, we will
watch as our children and students grow and bloom into responsible economic citizens. As
parents, teachers and educators, we can do this by sharing and talking directly with our children
about money matters, teaching them of the things to improve their money management skills, and
be role models for them.
To the winners of the 2014 Be Money Wi$e poster competition, I offer my heartfelt
congratulations! You have done a magnificent job with these posters - your entries were chosen
out of 550 entries submitted to us! I only pray that you will exercise some financial literacy with
your cash prizes received today!!
I would also like to acknowledge the principals and teachers for encouraging your students to
participate in the competition and for incorporating financial literacy in your lessons. With the
rewards that your individual schools will receive today I hope you are now ever more convinced
that financial literacy is worth it and that it pay$ off!
At this point I would like to acknowledge Meilan Meredith and her team at Business System
Limited for the wonderful partnership in the poster competition and kindly donating prizes and
trophies for our winners today. Your partnership is greatly appreciated and we look forward to
another opportunity to work with you in the future.
And lastly, a big faamalo to the Financial System Development team for coordinating this year's
poster competition.
I wish you all, a very blessed weekend.
Soifua ma ia manuia.