Latest update January 25th, 2025 4:24 AM
Young writer launches money book
There were far more children than adults in the audience and a balance across the age divide on the programme as Sharryn Dawson’s Money Basics for Kids: Financial Literacy for Children was launched last Wednesday.
It was made clear that the book, which is subtitled ‘Your child’s guide to understanding money and entrepreneurship’, is also meant for adults as much as it is pitched directly at children.
Sharryn Dawson
And it was emphasised that Money Basics for Kids is meant to have a continuing impact when the children who read it grow up, as well as far beyond The Knutsford Court Hotel, New Kingston, launch venue.
Dawson said after reading her book “each child comes away being financially literate. The promise of this book is, after the children have gone through it, they will become financially literate, with the basics of money and entrepreneurship.
“We live in a world where you work for someone or you work for yourself. This book works in both realms and gives the children the opportunity to figure out how do I plan my financial future,” Dawson said.
While the minimum recommended age for reading the book independently is nine years old, Dawson said that seven and eight year-olds can “get through, with some help, to a level of mastery.
“We want to create a wheel in which financial literacy is turning and turning in our country,” Dawson said.
And Oliver Fagan of AAMM Credit Union put Money Basics for Kids in the national context, saying “this book is as important to the future of our country as any debate about crime or anything else.
What we are doing here is making sure we do it right the first time by focusing on the children, who we always say are our future”.
With children from the Porter Centre for Excellence, Vere Technical High School, St Francis Primary and Half-Way Tree Primary in the audience, a number of children read from sections of the book.
The launch host, André Hartley, introduced the youngsters, among them young entrepreneur Joshua Jones, El Instituto de Mandevilla student Leighann Dacres and Dawson’s son, Taheed Garcia, who she said had been integral to the children-friendly language of Money Basics for Kids.
The 68-page book has five chapters, ‘Where Does Money Come From?’, ‘How do People earn Money?’, ‘How to Manage Your Money’, ‘How to Save Your Money’ and ‘Creating Your Business Idea’, each of which closes with an activity. The readers are guided along by characters Malcolm the Detective and his good friend, Shelly.
Education Officer Karean Troupe gave the Ministry of Education’s endorsement of ‘Money Basics for Kids’.
“Financial literacy, like any other issue, should be developed over someone’s lifetime. It is not something we should learn about after university,” Troupe said. The challenge, though, is “how do we make principles of financial literacy to be hype and hip?”
She pointed out that children will save up to buy an iPod or cellphone, asking “how do we transfer that ‘hype’ concept to flash a bank book and say I am financially smart?
“We are talking about habit-forming behaviours,” Troupe said, tossing out financial terms such as budgeting, credit and borrowing and protecting one’s money through insurance. “This book will introduce your children to these concepts,” she said.
(Jamaica Gleaner)
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