Stories
I had an opportunity to train the community of Tembisa in Ekurhuleni Municipality. The training session held for the community was impactful and an eye-opening experience for all participants. As a facilitator, I was both excited and humbled by the opportunity to lead this workshop, as it allowed me to connect with individuals from the community. They were excited about the workshop as it helped them gain the tools they need to improve their financial wellbeing. Participants were engaging and one of the most rewarding aspects of this training was the active participation from the community members as they were eager to learn and ask questions, share personal experiences, and contribute to discussions. This open engagement helped create a safe and collaborative learning environment where participants felt comfortable learning from one another. The topics discussed were relevant to real life issues, such as budgeting, debt management, credit scores, and saving for emergencies, which resonated deeply with attendees. Many shared that it is not easy to discuss money matters but this session made it easy for them and they felt empowered by the practical advice offered. Several individuals mentioned that they could immediately apply what they learned to improve their financial situation.
Avo vision came through again for the community in conjunction with SAPS and Department of Social Development on the 9th of May 2025, the session was interactive and participants found the content insightful and mind opening
Financial life skills training program Avocado Vision In partnership with Clientele inaugurated the Money for sho inreach were different communities benefited in this program. Group activities have shown exhilaration towards learning financial life skills training, some of the terms in the contents are familiar without understanding and the program brought to understanding. Nomfundo Nkosi a 52 year Old woman from a small village called Mpakeni with so much excitement and show enthusiasm towards the program. Presenting group activity she said " their Current financial situation as they live in rural area they depend in farming to survive due to high percentage of unemployment, some receive Grant." Financial fear she said " Damaged of crops course by the wild animals that escape in the near by game reserve destroy their plant's of which seeds are very expensive and that is a loose to us" Financial dreams she said" to have a fenced plaas, because the vision is to supply local, national and international with our products, more jobs can be created and some poeple can learn from us". I also also visited Mariti community to upskilled local youth which they have anticipation towards the program: " Saving for emergency fund open their minds, budgeting and insurance. Planning for a funeral was a sensitive session, relevant information because most families plan when the event have occurs and it made them realise the importance of having a funeral cover.
Laurium Capital take place at Villiersdorp community, it was such an awesome opportunity for our community to have such trainings again and again due to the situation we are living under, especially this year people were not working, most of the Farms took the cheap labors to do the jobs, which leave our people with no jobs, and that is creating a lot of crime, hatred in the communities, if we can also focus on jobs opportunities that can also be a helpful training for our communities, because when they start business is hard to get profit from the people because they are not working, by the way they really enjoyed the training, the also thank Avocado for always thinking of them by always bringing the new ideas of saving and learning to control themselves.
On the 12 March 2025 i conducted a session on Money Fo Sho in Tsakane at Consuming Fire Ministries. This was a group of young people. Many of them were excited to learn about budgeting and moreover they were excited to know about the snowball method and one in particular spoke of how the snowball method will be beneficial for them as they find ways of settling their accounts.
A powerful story from the field. On the 05 and 06th May I was privileged to train in another village of Moeka in Moretele Local Municipality on The North-West. On the first day after presentation of the Money Fo'Sho session a lady by the name of Caroline Dikobe saw us leave the venue and wondered what was going on, this is according to her telling me on the second day. Of course the following day she came to attend the Sanlam Money Modular courses on budgeting and Young people and money. After the sessions she came to me and told me how blessed and fortunate she was and that she had gained a lot in one day and wishes this was a month long program due to its impact in her life although a short days program. However the story does not start enthusiastically as she was feeling robbed of time, suicidal and feeling like a looser in life at 37 years of age. Now her life has been turned around as she feels motivated and encouraged to live a purposeful live. The two modules made her think about her long lost passion of being involved in ECD (Early Child-Care Development) and would now love to register and go back to class as soon as she can procure enough funds. Thanks to all the partners with underprivileged communities that we can reach people like Caroline and so many who have lost hope. We certainly are making a difference one life at a time.
The training was conducted for 2days, on the 8th and 9th of May 2025. It was on Money Modular. This was a continuation of the financial skills training as part of the same group attended a Money Fo Sho session last year. It is a group of participants with various physical disabilities who are on an ECD Level 5 learnership programme. They were very excited because the training was like a refresher for them and at the same time it brought more clarity on many topics they dealt with in Money fo sho. Antoinette (Project Manager) was present in one of the training days, and shared some useful information on scams and phishing .The activities on Budgeting, Setting Goals and Money Safety were the highlights as participants were open to share their experiences on how one was a victim of a scam because of the desperation for money and employment. It was so sad to hear that the victims had to borrow money to buy laptops which they lost and found out that they were scammed as it turned out that it was a fake job opportunity. They found the SMART and GROW principles as very useful in guiding them to set achievable goals. The Budgeting template was so useful to them as they were receiving a stipend and was a good practice towards a proper budget with a surplus and not a shortfall, thanks to the Handout they worked on as individuals and later shared the information as group presentations. The training was more fitting to the attendees in many ways!
On the 23rd of April 2025, I was excited to get another opportunity to impart knowledge on Money Fo Sho to the so ever eager to learn community of Mistake Farm in Umzinto (KZN) and this time in the presence of the iTOO representative, Rob Ferguson. Mistake Farm is in the remote area and it is very rare to get any form of training to empower the community more especially the large number of unemployed youth. There were about 50 participants which is the number way above the required but Rob said we should not chase them away because it shows their eagerness for knowledge, so I had quiet a big group. They were so lucky because Rob brought them some snacks which I think brought excitement to excel in their participation on the activities done during the training. There was also a group of participants who are under a project by LIMA and it was so interesting to listen to them sharing their journeys on how they got indebted and cannot even enjoy their work life, so I had to deviate and talk about how to come out of debt using the snowball method and advising them to use registered debt counsellors as another option if they feel that debts are too much to handle. This was an eye opener to the young ones to know how not being able to manage debt can put you in such trouble, more questions were on how they can keep their credit profiles/reports in order and be financially healthy. After the session I got more requests for more Financial Skills training as other community members saw their posts on social media and wanted the same information too. It is always a pleasure to serve that community even though the area is too far and is costly to reach but the willingness to learn is just what melts my heart.
