81.7 F
Charlotte Amalie
Thursday, March 28, 2024
HomeNewsArchivesFirstCaribbean Bank Gives $204,000 to Junior Achievement

FirstCaribbean Bank Gives $204,000 to Junior Achievement

FirstCaribbean International Bank has donated $204,000 to Junior Achievement, including $12,000 for the program in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The donation was announced Friday by Michael Dow, executive director of Junior Achievement of the Virgin Islands.

FirstCaribbean International Bank operates in 18 Caribbean and Central American countries and territories from Trinidad to Belize. Though not a presence in the V.I., it has branches on Tortola and Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands.

Junior Achievement is an international program which began in 1919, Dow said, which teaches students about personal finance, economics and how to run a business. It spread to the Virgin Islands in 2009 and has already reached more than 2,000 students, Dow said. By the end of the school year in June that number will have reached more than 3,500.

The $12,000 to the JAVI will support the company program, offered as an after-school course to local high school students.

Last year the JA offered the company program at Charlotte Amalie and Ivanna Eudora Kean high schools on St. Thomas. This year it expanded to St. Croix, and will be open not only to students of those schools but other high school students in the territory, Dow said.

In the company program, volunteer advisers from the local business community help the students form their own companies. They sell stock in the companies to raise capital, then create a business plan, do market research and cost-benefit analysis, elect officers and go out and market a product or service in the community.

At the program’s end, the company is liquidated and the money raised disbursed to the shareholders as a profit or loss on the investment.

The program provides practical, hands-on experience about developing and operating a business and the importance of identifying education and career goals based on a student’s skills, interests, and values, Dow said.

In last year’s program, the two student groups generated profits of more than $2,000 each for their investors.

"Of all the programs, JA Company Program is perhaps the most important," said JAVI board chairman Anthony Pearsall. "I witnessed firsthand the boundless imagination of our students and how well they worked together."

JAVI also offers in-class economic and personal finance programs at the high school and junior high school level, Dow said, funded in part by a $500,000 grant from ScotiaBank. $15,000 of that grant for a three-year period went to the program in the V.I., with the remainder spread across other countries in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Dow said over the next three years FCIB and Junior Achievement will make this financial literacy and entrepreneurship course available to more than 1,100 students in Bahamas, Barbados, Cayman Islands, Grenada, Jamaica, Netherland Antilles, St. Lucia, St. Kitts & Nevis, Trinidad & Tobago, and the British and U.S. Virgin Islands.

A critical component of the programs is the group of volunteers from local business who give time each week to teach the students how to manage their personal finances, set a budget, save and make decisions about spending, Dow said.

"Junior Achievement is very much a volunteer-driven program," he said. "It teaches basic economics, the economics of life. It depends on volunteers. … I’m constantly recruiting and encouraging people to come out and help us."

The in-class programs asks volunteers to give about an hour a week for six weeks; the classroom program includes managing money, preparing a budget, deciding how much they can save, how much to give as a charitable contribution.

"It’s a program that really supports the social science curriculum, math, reasoning and rationalizing," Dow said.

Those interested can volunteer or get more information by calling Dow at 1-340-277-2655 or sending him an email at mjdow@jausvi.org. Further information on Junior Achievement is online at www.ja.org.

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Keeping our community informed is our top priority.
If you have a news tip to share, please call or text us at 340-228-8784.

Support local + independent journalism in the U.S. Virgin Islands

Unlike many news organizations, we haven't put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as accessible as we can. Our independent journalism costs time, money and hard work to keep you informed, but we do it because we believe that it matters. We know that informed communities are empowered ones. If you appreciate our reporting and want to help make our future more secure, please consider donating.

1 COMMENT