The Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my ex­posed stu­dents from sev­er­al sec­ondary schools across To­ba­go to lessons in fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy as part of Glob­al Mon­ey Week (GMW) cel­e­bra­tions at the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex on Tues­day.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, this year’s GMW is marked by a se­ries of fi­nan­cial aware­ness ac­tiv­i­ties from March 25-31.

An ini­tia­tive of the Child and Youth Fi­nance In­ter­na­tion­al, the aware­ness cam­paign was cre­at­ed to in­spire chil­dren and young peo­ple to learn about mon­ey and en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

It was start­ed by Ala­toun In­ter­na­tion­al, a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion based in the Nether­lands which of­fers so­cial and fi­nan­cial ed­u­ca­tion to youths.

The Fi­nance Di­vi­sion’s ses­sions, which were in­ter­ac­tive, used the­atre pre­sen­ta­tions by a group of artists called the D Mad Com­pa­ny.

THA Sec­re­tary in the Di­vi­sion of Fi­nance and the Econ­o­my Joel Jack said the pre­sen­ta­tions were geared to­wards teach­ing re­spon­si­ble mon­ey man­age­ment and fi­nan­cial de­ci­sion mak­ing at an ear­ly age.

He said they were al­so de­signed to cater to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial needs of To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“Fi­nan­cial ed­u­ca­tion is a crit­i­cal life skill which can cre­ate pos­i­tive so­cial skills, en­hance em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty and pro­vide greater fi­nan­cial em­pow­er­ment for our young adults,” Jack said.

The stu­dents were al­so giv­en fi­nan­cial ad­vice from Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Om­buds­man Do­minic Stod­dard.

“The first thing you need to do is de­vel­op a mon­ey man­age­ment mind­set where you as young peo­ple would set aside your be­liefs. What you de­sire, you too can have it if you work to­wards hav­ing it one day,” Stod­dard told the stu­dents.

He al­so ad­vised them to spend less than they earned, seek ad­vice from peo­ple with ex­pe­ri­ence and cre­ate pas­sive in­come.