Junior Achievement Saskatchewan partners with many third parties across the province to help bring business and financial education to schools.
But the partnership that Junior Achievement will have with the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce is the first of its kind in Canada.
“It’s a really exciting fit because the Chamber members are also supporters for our programs in an area,” says Darren Hill, Junior Achievement Saskatchewan President and CEO.
Chamber members are usually the volunteers to deliver the programs or the ones providing financial support for programs. We would have been contacting them anyway, says Hill.
Junior Achievement has support from chambers across the province, including the provincial chamber of commerce, but this partnership is the first one where the chamber is a delivery agent for an area, says Hill.
“They are the true experts of Humboldt and district. Who better to work with who knows the area better than anybody else,” says Hill.
Junior Achievement Saskatchewan has been in the Horizon School Division for four years, but now the Chamber will be going into the 41 schools in the division to teach workplace readiness, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship as early as Grade 3 and into the high school years.
“Our youth are our future workforce,” says Debra Nyczai, Executive Director of the Humboldt & District Chamber of Commerce. “As an organization that supports business, it is imperative that we have a strong business community. We want to help our youth to start thinking about entrepreneurship as a career choice and for them to live, work and invest in the Humboldt region.”
For Humboldt and area, students are already exposed to local businesses through family members, says Nyczai.
“As a smaller community, it is definitely relevant to start this partnership in our region.”
Kevin Garinger, Director of Education, was excited to see many Horizon board members and Saskatchewan government ministers observe the Dollars with Sense program in Humboldt Public School early in the 2015-2016 school year. Horizon has seen the need for the program and the passion surrounding those teaching it, says Garinger.
“Giving students the opportunity to engage in programs that are related to the business world...it’s real life things that student needs and certainly can help support them in life outside of the classroom,” says Garinger.
Hill says the response from parents after they saw the take home material the students received was very positive and something that parents did not think to speak with their children about.
Some parents just don’t know that financial literacy was not taught as part of the curriculum.
“There are some schools that have some add-in programs that do touch on it but there is no built in financial literacy component all the way from a K-12 education,” says Hill.
Numerous programs will be brought into Horizon, including the Our Business World programs which is a basic introduction to business, “to get that spark into kids minds,” says Hill, and the Economics for
Success program which encourages kids to finish Grade 12 and go into post-secondary school, whether it is university, trade school, or a technical college.
