AS part of its 40th Anniversary celebration, the Central Bank of Solomon Islands (CBSI) has assigned Monday 27 June, 2016 as the Solomon Islands Money Day – with the theme ‘Take Part. Save Smart’.
This theme was adopted from this year’s Global Money Week; which CBSI were not able to hold during the first quarter of this year.
It kicked off at 7am with a parade from the Honiara City Council (HCC) area to the National Art Gallery.
The event to mark the important day in CBSI’s calendar was fun filled, as stakeholders, school children, and members of the public gathered at the National Art Gallery grounds, in Honiara to be part of the celebrations on Monday.
In his remarks, the Governor of CBSI Denton Rarawa said the theme carries the message that it is time that children and youths of Solomon Islands are empowered by encouraging them to take part and save their financial resources smartly.
Mr Rarawa said, this is the first ever program for the Central Bank and the National Financial Inclusion Taskforce that is focused on financial education for children and youth of the country, and it is one of our National Financial Inclusion Goals.
“As a matter of fact, Solomon Islands has commitments both regionally and internationally to facilitate financial education in collaboration with the Government to integrate financial education in our school curriculum.
“Regionally we have the 2020 Money Pacific goals and internationally the Alliance for Financial Inclusion Maya Declaration where Central Bank of Solomon Islands is committed to champion financial education through close collaboration with the Government to integrate financial education in the existing Solomon Islands national school curriculum from class 1 to Form 3 by year 2013.
“Work to integrate financial education in our school curriculum has started,” the Governor stated.
As guest speaker at the Money Day Celebrations, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development (MEHRD) Dr Franco Rodie also speaks of the work to integrate financial education in the country’s school curriculum.
According to Dr Rodie, the progress made by the Ministry in achieving this goal is moving ahead steadily.
Some of the stakeholders that took part in the event were the ANZ Bank, Bank of South Pacific (BSP), Pan Oceanic Bank (POB), Ministry of Finance and Treasury (MoFT), Solomon Power, Solomon Water, World Vision, Australian High Commission, SISBEC, SINPF, and SPBD.
These stakeholders have made promotion and awareness talks based on the theme, “Take part. Save Smart!”
A School quiz competition was also organised for the school students that were part of the one day event.
By RONALD TOITO’ONA
