Introductory remarks
I am very happy to celebrate this Global Money Week event today with you the
children and youth of Noro and Munda, Western Province.
This is a historical event, not only for Noro, but also for Solomon Islands because
we for the first time are celebrating the Global Money Week together with the
rest of global community. We are putting Noro Town, and the Children and youth
of Noro as part of this Global event to represent our country the Solomon Islands.
Let me share with you three reasons why I am passionate about events like this
Global Money Week that focuses on educating our children and youth on
financial education, to change the habits that we have inherited from our
environment on how to deal with financial resources.
[Problem/Opportunity]
First, the future of our economic growth and management of our financial
resource requires that our children and youth must have financial education early
in their life so that they can become informed economic citizens of our country.
This need arises because studies that we have carried out with our development
partners in the country show that our country has a very low score on financial
management and financial competency. Another study we also conducted
reviewed that 66.2% of our total population are not using the banking services.
At present we have no financial education subjects formally taught in our
education system. Therefore, to empower our children and youth to become
successful economic citizens in future, we must start to teach and educate our
children on financial education. This is one of the priorities of the Solomon
Islands government goals that the Central Bank and the National Financial
Inclusion Taskforce have been working on and are still working on to achieve in
the past 6 years and will continue to do so until our education curriculums
incorporate financial education as part of learning for our students from year 1 to
year 12.
As a country, Solomon Islands has commitments both regionally and
internationally to facilitate financial education in collaboration with the
Government to integrate financial education in our school curriculum. Regionally
we have the 2020 Money Pacific goals and internationally the Alliance for
Financial Inclusion Maya Declaration where Central Bank of Solomon Islands is
committed to champion financial education through close collaboration with the
Government to integrate financial education in the existing Solomon Islands
national school curriculum.
Work to integrate financial education in our school curriculum has started. We
understand the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development;
Curriculum Division is working to incorporate the financial education learning
objectives in our existing school curriculum. I hope that when the work is
completed and our teachers are taught how to teach financial education in our
schools, this problem of not incorporating financial education in our primary to
high schools that we face today will be corrected so the country can benefit to
have financial literate and competent economic citizens in our country.
the theme of this year's Global
Secondly let me tell you why I am excited about
Money Week; "Learn, Save, and Earn"; this is a way of highlighting the urgent
need for financial education in our country.
First the "learn" part of the theme. This word highlights the need to teach our
children and youth (also adults included) on the value of looking after our money
(management), saving, and investing money. The use of money can empower our
children and youth to become good economic citizens. Money is a resource and
its scarce or we don't have enough of it. Unless our children are taught how to
use it wisely, they could spend the money uneconomically. An event like this
highlights the need to learn about financial education and services that is provided
by our financial institutions like banks or our credit unions to help us become
good economic citizen
The second word in the theme is "Save". This word appears to be
a very important
key word in children and youth Global Money week promotions, because the
word 'Save'
is also part of the 2016 Global Money Week. We need to teach our
children to develop the early habits of savings, which is one of the most important
roles of parents or even our financial educators.
Putting aside a small sum of money for future, creates a habit of good resource
management. But this saving habit can also extend to other areas that we often do
not see it as a means of savings. For example, when we fixed a broken water tap
that waste water, saves us the cost of paying for wastage of water. We save money
when we switched off power in our house when no one is in the house. We save
money for our school when we look after the school property and as a result our
school does not waste money on repairing them. Looking after our environment
so that we can save it for our future generation is also true, another concept of
saving. So the need to teach our young people to understand these saving habits
is critical.
And third word in the theme is "Earn". This word focuses on livelihood skills,
business training and job training. It emphasises that we can start to help our
children to learn what is required to work towards education to achieve a career
they dream to have; educate our children to start good business practices of how
to own their own businesses, which includes going into agriculture productions,
buying and selling of farm products, owning a retail shop or a transport business
or involved in service industry as legal advisers, accountants or as medical
practitioners or information technology or engineering. Earning an income has
many sources.
[(Optional and can be left out) Let me tell you a story about a 10-year boy who
lives in a village called Zutapate in Dovele, Vella La Vella. This is a true story
that our Deputy Governor learnt while he was having his holiday there recently.
Let us call him Johnny. Johnny's parents are just ordinary villagers and like
village parents they work hard to earn income by providing transportation to
people who want to come Gizo or sell fresh fish to villages around them. Johnny
however saw an opportunity and takes advantage of his parents coming to Gizo;
he decided to ask his parents to buy a carton of noodles, cans of Soltuna, boxes
of matches and lollies to sell to his friends or people in his village. Since coming
little
to Gizo is expensive for the villagers, they buy the goods from Johnny's
canteen. Johnny saves his earning and continue to recycle his cash flow until he
has accumulated enough money to pay for his own school fees this year. And as
I understand, he is still in business to raise money for his school fee next year. I
like this story because it is the children like Johnny who can develop the savings
habits and entrepreneurial habits earlier in their lives that we want to see as future
economic citizens of our country.]
So our Global Money Week theme "Learn,
Save and Earn" emphasises the need
to help our children and youth to learn about money, how to save and how to earn
money either as professional employees or as business owners. I am sure you will
learn more about this when you participate and go around the stalls this morning.
Thirdly, the particular focus of this Global Money Week is to bring attention to
everyone that a credit union is one of the powerful institutions that can help our
children and youth to learn financial education at an early age. A credit union is
similar to a commercial bank, it can provide the same products and services like
a commercial bank, but what is different is that the credit union is owned by
members who are the shareholders and at the same time are customers to the
credit union. Credit unions can provide different saving accounts to suit the needs
of their members. They can create saving products such as junior saving accounts
for the children. Credit Unions provide lending products for their members. And
credit unions can provide insurance coverage for their members as well.
why they don't want to open an account with
One of the reasons people explain
a commercial bank is that because banks charge fees to keep their accounts. While
paying fees is something that we all cannot avoid because provision of banking
services costs money, in a credit union the interests, fees and charges that are paid
by members is distributed back to the members as net interest income. I say this
because I am also member of our staff Credit Union called Bokolo Credit Union
Limited day one when I join the Central Bank of Solomon Islands and know the
benefit credit unions can give members.
As the Registrar for Credit Unions, I take note of the progress in the growth of
the assets of both the Soltuna Employees Credit Union Limited and The Tuna
Trust Credit Union limited. If the Board and management of these credit unions
continue to manage these credit unions professionally, they will both be the
vehicle to encourage our children and youth here in Noro and Munda community
to learn how to save and earn and become good financial and economic citizens
of our country.
Finally, let me take this opportunity to thank the many people who made this
Global Money Week celebration possible. To the Board of directors of both Tuna
Trust Credit Union Limited and Soltuna Employees Credit union Limited. I salute
you for accepting our request to work together to host this Global Money Week.
I would like to thank Selwyn Talasasa, one of the long serving credit union
promoters who has been a credit union person since day one of his career. He has
been very helpful in organizing our global money week. Thank you Selwyn. I
also thank the Global money week committee for their assistance in organising
this global money week. And thanks to the management of both National
Fisheries Development Limited and Soltuna Limited for your support in hosting
this Global Money Week. Thank you NFD and Soltuna, you made us all proud as
good cooperate citizens.
To our Noro town Clerk for your support. And to Noro and Munda Police that
provide overall security for the program.
But our thanks go to all of you school children and teachers of both Noro and
Munda primary schools who are part of this program this week. You have made
Solomon Islands proud by registering in the map that we too are part of this
Global Money Week.
Finally, to my staff who have been working to ensure that we celebrate this day
as opportunity to learn and have fun.
Let us make Global Money Week celebration here at Noro a memorable occasion.
Let us all LEARN, SAVE and EARN.
God bless all.
Thank you.