The ASISA Foundation has entered into an agreement with the South African Housing Co-operative Association (SAHCA) to collaborate on delivering financial literacy programmes to members of the community across the country.
The SAHCA membership consists of primary and secondary housing co-operatives in various provinces. These co-operatives facilitate programmes and activities to prepare members of the community for future home ownership. The provision of relevant financial literacy programmes is one such activity.
Since this function aligns with the Foundation’s objective of providing relevant and objective financial education programmes to poor and vulnerable communities in the most effective and efficient manner, it makes sense for SAHCA and the Foundation to work in partnership to deliver suitable financial education programmes in a structured and co-ordinated manner.
A pilot financial literacy programme is underway with the Western Cape Secondary Housing and Development Co-operative (WCSHDC), a member of SAHCA. The learnings will be used to further tailor the Foundation’s Saver Waya Waya: Build Up Programme, a financial literacy programme designed for co-operatives, to the needs of SAHCA members.
It is envisaged that the Build Up Programme will be rolled out over time across provinces subject to the availability of funding.
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L+EARN Programme for ISFAP
The Foundation has partnered with the Ikusasa Student Financial Aid Programme (ISFAP) to equip students with the skills required to successfully manage their finances, both during their time as students and later once they enter the job market.
The Foundation’s L+EARN Programme is currently being piloted at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) as an additional component of the wrap-around support offered by ISFAP to students.
ISFAP is in the third year of its pilot phase with students enrolled across 12 universities in faculties covering occupations in high demand. The programme aims to provide young South Africans with a higher education that will enable them to pursue careers that have been identified as critical to South Africa’s economic development.
Contributing to the success of ISFAP is the wrap-around psychological, social and educational support to participating students, which aims to reduce drop-out rates. This approach is proving very successful in that it is achieving a retention rate in excess of 90% for students enrolled in some of the toughest degree programmes like medical, engineering, accounting and actuarial.
ASISA is represented on the ISFAP steering committee and financial support to students is being provided by the private sector, including ASISA members, via the ISFAP Foundation.
We would like to congratulate Driven Entrepreneurs on having reached the five-year milestone, which is considered a big achievement in the world of start-ups. Three years ago, the ASISA Foundation partnered with Driven on the roll-out of our flagship FLAME (Financial Literacy and Micro-enterprise) Programme, which empowers beneficiaries in low-income areas.
Despite being a fledgling business, Driven’s MD, Owen Muzambi, and his team helped us take financial literacy to more than 300 community members with our FLAME Programme. Best of all we managed to incubate 30 township micro-enterprises. These businesses started the incubation programme with cumulative recorded turnover of just over R100 000 per month. After 15 months of incubation, the businesses had generated cumulative turnover of more than R4 million, of which R1 million was profit.
Thank you, Owen and team. We are proud partners.
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