Barbadians must work towards generating generational wealth but should first cast aside outdated notions regarding intrapreneurship.
Minister of Energy and Business Development Senator Lisa Cummins said financial literacy involved being able to earn money from multiple sources.
“I want to challenge you to ensure that you understand financial literacy to be about the development of an entrepreneurial economy. It is about the development of a growth-driven economy. It is about the opportunity for empowerment, enfranchisement and inclusion.
Opportunities
“It is also about the opportunities for intrapreneurship, people who are working in their respective fields and who have an opportunity to have businesses while they’re working full-time,” she said.
Cummins was delivering the feature address at the launch of Phase 2 of the FLITE (Financial Literacy) School Programme in Baobab Tower, Warrens, St Michael, yesterday.
“The notion that you can earn or generate and create wealth from a single stream of income is an outdated notion,” the minister said.
“We need to be able to develop capacity and empower our people, even as they work in full-time jobs and give of their all to their full-time jobs, to simultaneously be able to build and grow businesses and, in turn, build and grow wealth. Then, when they have built and grown wealth, we have to be able to help those people to create generational wealth.
“So when we talk about generational wealth, how do you build a business using the principles of financial literacy that does not die with you? How do you make sure that you have created family businesses and family trusts? How do you have family offices created?
“What structures are there that you should be creating to make sure that business has a successor? And that successor is able to celebrate 80 years, 100 years, of this company in business because generational wealth has been built. That’s what financial literacy is about, that’s what we’re talking about and that’s what we’re building when
we start at the school level,” she said.
Full potential
The senator challenged those implementing the programme to make a tangible difference in Barbados’ business landscape while also urging the participants to live up to their full potential.
“I want to challenge you to not limit yourselves to any small space within this framework. We want people to feel empowered to lead in their own right, to be able to come forward with ideas and concepts and expansionary programmes that allow us to thrive and grow.
“But also we want all of you to be able to have the opportunity to live your full potential so that you feel as if you have an opportunity to show the things that are in your spirit, in your heart, in your mind, that you’ve always thought about, that you now have an opportunity to bring to the table.
“I want to be able to see that new businesses have benefited from your input, from your leadership, from your ideas. I want to be able to see that the small business sector has grown, that more children are investing,” the minister added.
Programme coordinator Corey Worrell said FLITE was the schools’ component of the overall National Financial Literacy Programme. He said Phase 1 included 13 schools – six primary and seven secondary – while this year included the Irving Wilson School and Ann Hill School. He added the programme would be expanded to cover more classrooms and continue into the second term.
Worrell said there were 16 facilitators this year, two more than last year, and they would cover a wide range of topics like saving, budgeting, wise spending and the psychology of money. ( CA)
