Junior Achievement Zimbabwe in partnership with Standard Chartered Zimbabwe on the 13th of March 2020 launched the program Future Makers. This program which is anchored in Employee Volunteerism will teach Financial Education to young people.
The launch brought together Government ministries, JA Zimbabwe Board of Directors and staff, Standard Chartered staff, students, teachers and many other stakeholders. As part of the launch, JA Zimbabwe was handed over an amount of $ZWL500 000 to run the tailor designed Future Makers programme for the next three years.
The Deputy Governor for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Dr J.T Chipika officiated the launch and applauded the partnership which JA Zimbabwe and Standard Chartered is doing and said that the initiative will go a long way in the financial inclusion of young people. Future Makers by Standard Chartered, is the Bank’s global initiative to tackle the issue of inequality and seeks to promote greater economic inclusion for young people in communities across the globe.
Future Makers supports disadvantaged young people from low income households, particularly girls and people with visual impairments, to take part in programmes focused on education, employability and entrepreneurship. The initiative’s goal is to raise US$50 million (through fundraising and Bank-matching) between 2019 and 2023 to empower the next generation to learn, earn and grow.
Speaking on the event the Standard Chartered Zimbabwe CEO, Ralph Watungwa said that “As a bank we have proudly declared that we are here for good — and that has not changed. However, in 2018 we challenged ourselves to say that doing good enough was not going to change the world. Futuremakers has been developed with exactly this philosophy at its core — doing and investing where we can and will see tangible sustainable results in the lives of our youth. Future Makers is therefore a journey not a moment or collection of moments.”
The Financial Education curriculum components are packaged for Forms 1-3 and topics range from personal finance, borrowing, budgeting, expenditure and many more. After the official launch of the program a total of 106 students from various schools were taken through the first module of the course.