Since 2017, in order to encourage children to cultivate a healthy approach to household finance, and to reduce financial pressures on the less well-off households, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation and Citibank have been teaching adults financial prudence. Through these courses, parents learn how to explore financial prudence with their children through games.
Yesterday, the Pearl S. Buck Foundation announced the achievements of the program from the previous three years. Of a total of 118 groups of parents and children, 98.7 percent had demonstrated an improvement in financial responsibility, 97.9 percent had developed the habit of saving money and 97 percent were able to apply the ability to compare prices that they had learned in class to their everyday lives.
In addition, 91.1 percent of students, having previously been reluctant to teach their children about household finances, had started discussing money issues with members of their family, enabling children to reduce unnecessary expenditures.
Photo courtesy of Citibank, Taiwan
“Citibank has been promoting inclusive finance throughout the world for almost 15 years, investing around US$2.25 million, helping over 25,000 people establish proper financial sense and prudence. In Taiwan, Citibank has been working with the Pearl S. Buck Foundation for almost seven years, and has been committed to assisting new immigrant households to get out of poverty, working with over 5,000 individuals and helping them learn how to make ends meet,” Citi Taiwan chairman Paulus Mok (莫兆鴻) said.
The Pearl S. Buck Foundation has found that new immigrants and parents in poor households working labor-intensive jobs with long working hours often do not have the time they would ideally like to spend with their children, and end up relying on compensating them in material ways.
However, buying their children dolls, watches or designer shoes has several detrimental effects, not least making them unable to differentiate between essential and luxury items and risking households falling into financial debt. As children come to expect more, and parents are increasingly unable to meet their demands, a distance emerges between parents and children, and children are unable to understand how financial pressures in the family affect the decisions their parents make. This is why the foundation wants to promote the learning of principles of financial prudence, including giving a fixed allowance at regular times, teaching how to clearly distinguish between needs and wants, and exploring ways to earn money while also limiting expenditure.
“Xiaogang” from Vietnam and her daughter started the financial prudence course in 2017 and a year later, at the young age of 10, her daughter was receiving a fixed allowance at regular times and had already begun applying the principles that she had learned during her classes of saving up for things, putting her money into a post office account. With the money she had left over she had learned to distinguish between what she needed and what she wanted. Her goal is to be able to buy her own laptop computer when she grows up.
A-Xia from China and her daughter Ting-ting started attending the classes and soon began discussing money-related issues together through practical activities. For example, they would go to the local market to buy things, and would discuss whether something was necessary or just something that would be nice to have. Over time they were able to cultivate good spending habits.
Last year, single-parent A-Chien, after taking a course in recording expenditures, learned how to teach his child ways to save money and is now bringing Hsiao Chih, who is in the second grade, to class. A-Chien said that after Hsiao Chih started taking the class he told his sister that she should start recording her expenditures, too. Through price comparison and cooking do-it-yourself activities, the family learned how to go online for recipes when they want to eat something, and A-Chien would give the children a budget with which to buy ingredients and then make the food at home as a way to save money. They would also make more than they needed so that they could sell it to classmates. Through this process, they also learned how to set price levels.
Yu Ying-fu, the foundation’s chairman, said: “Financial prudence is not just something for adults, it is our wish that parents will guide their children from a young age to cultivate the proper approach to money, so that the finances of the household as a whole can improve. Next year, we will be consolidating all of the ideas from the course and creating a board game for poor families, and will be inviting even more people to learn about financial prudence through playing games together, to continue developing sound financial prudence.”
The Pearl S. Buck Foundation will continue promoting the financial prudence for families courses to help new immigrants and poor households, and next year will open a special board game workshop to attract more partners into financial prudence education.
The US House of Representatives yesterday passed the PROTECT Taiwan Act, which stipulates that Washington would exclude China from participating in major global financial organizations if its actions directly threaten Taiwan’s security. The bill, proposed by Republican US Representative Frank Lucas, passed with 395 votes in favor and two against. It stipulates that if China’s actions pose any threat to Taiwan’s security, economic or social systems, the US would, “to the maximum extent practicable,” exclude China from international financial institutions, including the G20, the Bank for International Settlements and the Financial Stability Board. The bill makes it clear that China
Taiwan’s Li Yu-hsiang performs in the men’s singles figure skating short program at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. Li finished 24th with a score of 72.41 to advance to Saturday’s free skate portion of the event. He is the first Taiwanese to qualify for the free skate of men’s singles figure skating at the Olympics since David Liu in 1992.
Garbage and recycling schedules are to vary from Saturday through Sunday next week over the Lunar New Year holiday period. The following collection information is from the governments of the six special municipalities. Taipei Regular service: Sunday to Monday next week. No service: Tuesday to Thursday next week. Extra service: Friday next week. Regular service resumes: Saturday next week. New Taipei City Extra service: Sunday. Adjusted collection time: Monday next week — garbage collection is to begin in the morning and end at 6pm. No service: Tuesday to Thursday next week. Regular service resumes: Friday next week. Note: Garbage can be dropped off at 70
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday held a ceremony marking the delivery of its 11th Anping-class offshore patrol vessel Lanyu (蘭嶼艦), saying it would boost Taiwan’s ability to respond to Beijing’s “gray zone” tactics. Ocean Affairs Council Deputy Minister Chang Chung-Lung (張忠龍) presided over the CGA event in the Port of Kaoshiung. Representatives of the National Security Council also attended the event. Designed for long-range and protracted patrol operations at sea, the Lanyu is a 65.4m-long and 14.8m-wide ship with a top speed of 44 knots (81.5kph) and a cruising range of 2,000 nautical miles (3704km). The vessel is equipped with a
RSS