Stories
Suzanne van Schalkwyk is a teenage girl who will be turning 18 in September. She realised the importance of being covered for a funeral. She is currently under the policy of her godmother, but will be on her own when turning 18. She is adamant to make sure that she is covered.
Shahieda Basterman, mother of a teenager daughter and a toddler participated in the session on Children and money. She was very grateful for the information as she has been equipped to teach her children about money and how to manage itl
Mrs Pearley Lewis is the Director of Shydac, a NGO working in the community of Parkdene in George. The session, The Buying Big-Ticket items was done on her premises with about 30 participants. The first session, Money fo' Sho was thoroughly enjoyed and triggered this response. Participants indicated that the balloon payment was something they didn't know about. They were also intrigued by making sure that you are acquainted with all the relevant information before you sign any agreement or contract when buying expensive items. You also need to keep in mind some hidden costs which you might not consider.
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.
From the 14th of May 2025 to the 17th, I conducted training in various Hollywood bets sites in Limpompo (Loius Trichardt, Malamulele, Thohoyando and Giyani). At first what seemed to be a daunting task, because of cultural and language differences, ended up being a worthwhile experience. We covered savings and investments (MM2) in the trainings, which was frightening because it requires the use of big words like "compound interest", "Macro and Micro Economy", "inflation" etc. And explaining these words to an audience that did not speak isiXhosa or Zulu seemed like a mammoth task. Contrary to belief, the training went exceptionally well! At one of the training sessions I was approached by a young gentleman of no more than 23 years of age, he was interested in discussing investments at length. He was interested in ways to make his money work for him so that he may be self sustainable one day and not rely on employment.
