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Youth & Money: how it works

Children from the Oakville Chinese Network  &  Mr. Wong | Oakville Chinese Network
Children from the Oakville Chinese Network & Mr. Wong | Oakville Chinese Network

We’ve heard about money ever since we started to learn to speak – our parents talk about it, TV comments it. But what do we really know about money?

Not much - until this great day -- Two days’ training on Money and Youth organized by Oakville Chinese Network and sponsored by Mr. Pierre Wong, Financial Specialist from Investor Group.

Thursday July 24, 2014 was our first class at the Money and Youth workshop at the Newcomer Information Centre - Oakville located at Unit 20, 171 Speers Road. The lecturer was Pierre Wong from the Investors Group, who sponsored this event. Mr. Wong was a very nice guy and extremely knowledgeable. The first thing he said, surprisingly, was – “let’s eat!” What a fun way to start a class! Mr. Wong brought boxes of pizza for the class. Everybody was smiling and having a great time.

There were about 25-30 kids and parents participating the event. In two short days, Mr. Wong taught us many things about money: how the money links to our every stage in life, especially to our education, family, career and even retirement. He went over all the topics like budgeting, borrowing, credit, saving, investment, self-employment, etc. He sure made them all so interesting and not that difficult to follow. All of us love our first real lesson on money - so many ideas on how we should use our money wisely that we can’t wait to share with mom and dad! We remember what Mr. Wong said in the class: everyone should think and set up a goal on saving, also make a plan to reach the goal. Our favorite topic is the differences between wants and needs. Many kids are interested in how to achieve “credit worthiness”.

At the end of each day we had a quiz and a discussion led by Mr. Wong. After that it was the highlight of the day - the Prize draw! Three lucky boys won the prizes on the first day, and three lucky girls won the prizes on the second day, and everyone received a movie ticket!  Mr. Wong is so creative and thoughtful! The days were over before we noticed – guess what people say is true: the day goes fast when you have fun! We went home happily with a mind full of new knowledge.

The fun was over, but the learning has just begun. We want to make sure we retain the good stuff Mr. Wong taught us and take action. We will pass our newly acquired finance knowledge to mom and dad, so that we can all be prepared for our college education!

Thank you Mr. Wong and the Sunshine Path Youth Empowerment Group affiliated with Oakville Chinese Network for a great two days: learning can be fun! We hope there will be workshops like this for kids in the GTA in the future!


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