Become cash confident this Youth Work Week

As part of NYA’s Youth Work Week (#YWW17), we caught up with Kara from UK Youth member SLYNCS to hear about her experience with Money for Life and how youth work has helped her become a cash confident Money Champion.

Here’s what Kara said…

I first got introduced to the Money for Life programme when my youth group was asked to run the training as part of our youth forum. A few of us were really interested in the programme and thought it might be good to take part.

From the first session it was clear that this was a good choice and there were many more fascinating things to come!

Over the course of the Money for Life programme I received some one to one support from the Money Champions and my youth worker, Shane. When I first started the project I was really unsure about a lot of things to do with money. After recently moving out of my home with Mum, I was really struggling to budget and figuring out what things I could actually afford. My youth worker and the Money for Life Champions gave me some money advice tips on how I could budget, save money and also think of things which are really essential.

After completing the programme, I am now able to budget correctly with my income and I really don’t need to worry about not having any money left until payday.

With the help of Money for Life and my youth worker, I have gained so much knowledge around money, budgeting and even living alone, which is brilliant for me. My attitude has changed so much when it comes to budgeting and spending money on things I really don’t need to buy.

I think that it’s important to learn about new things that you don’t cover in school. SLYNCS is always developing skills within my peers to become more equipped when we go out into the world on our own. I think having this type of programme at a youth club is good because it’s more relaxed, you can get some one to one support when you need it and even after the programme has finished you can still get more support.

In fact, over the summer, I was given the opportunity to become a Money for Life Champion on the SLYNCS NCS programme. I absolutely loved it! It was a good way to build my confidence and work with my peers. After receiving some extra Money for Life training, I felt confident to run my very own Money Masterclass with other young people my age. From this opportunity I gained a lot of confidence when speaking to other people but I also felt much empowered to do more. Towards the end of the session I had the chance to sit down with some of the young people and tell them about my Money for Life story and how the programme had helped me out. The young people then went on to develop their very own Community Challenge which was very successful.

To find out more how you can become a Money Champion, contact your local Money for Life hub or Money for Life directly at MoneyforLife@ukyouth.org.