According to Lean de Beer, CEO of WaFunda, a for-profit social impact enterprise focusing on financial literacy and access to education funding for youth and students, “South Africans, especially young South Africans are drowning in debt”.
As a parent, it is normal to want your child to have a better upbringing than you, to succeed and to thrive in life. Bringing tools and information to make wise financial decisions from an early age can help that reality come to fruition.
Some South African households neglect the teaching of financial literacy. Children grow up and complete their studies and enter into the adult world of work and handling money, without understanding how to make in their hard earned money work their benefit.
The consequences of this is that sometimes we see many young people stuck in poverty, struggling to survive and make ends meet while drowning in debt. They find themselves living hand-to-mouth. The only remedy to this is to change things at an early stage, empower young children with financial literacy to curb these challenges.
Statistics show that 49% of South Africans are shown to be financially illiterate and an estimation of only 5% of South to Africans will be able to retire comfortably. These figures are worry some considering the fact that finances are important in shaping and individual and the future of their economy.
Another step into reaching financial literacy is for our government to equip our education system so that children are able to handle and understand basic financial documents and the confidence to take charge of their lives, build a more secure future for themselves, their families and South Africa as a whole.
DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s). They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Pondoland Times.
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