Aly Hirji receives CBA’s Financial Literacy Award

On May 11, 2015, Aly Hirji, a business teacher and career studies teacher and department head with Sir Wilfred Laurier Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, received Canadian Bankers Association’s (CBA) Financial Literacy Award, which recognizes outstanding teachers and volunteer bankers for their dedication to improving the financial literacy of young people in their community.

Banks recognize that providing young Canadians with information and tools to understand the importance of money management at an early age helps improve the financial literacy of Canadians as a whole. In addition to the initiatives sponsored or led by the individual banks to promote financial literacy, the banks also jointly support a non-commercial in-class seminar called Your Money Students. Since 1999, the CBA has coordinated the Your Money Students seminar program, a free 50-minute non-commercial financial literacy seminar for senior high school students about:

• Budgeting – how to spend what you have
• Saving – how to save for what you want, both now and in the future
• Investing – how to grow your money
• Credit – how it works and how to avoid traps
• Fraud – how to keep your money safe

Developed in partnership with the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), the Your Money Students seminar is presented by more than 600 local bankers from across Canada who volunteer their time and expertise to deliver the seminar in schools. The interactive seminar gives students the opportunity to learn about real-life financial subjects and to ask questions about the issues that matter most to them. To date, more than 220,000 students have participated in the program.

The Your Money Students seminar program is one of the ways we are reaching young Canadians with the message of financial literacy. It is through their involvement in the program, either as a teacher hosting a seminar, or a banker who goes into the classroom, that the positive impact on the financial future of young Canadians is made.

More information and the list of award recipients at Your Money Students – Bringing Financial Basics to the Classroom