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Financial Education: Raising Awareness among Senior Citizens

Lily Ruiz — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:27:22 +0000

Financial abuse is the third-most commonly substantiated type of elder abuse. While in previous times, the word “robbed” may have conjured images of masked thieves, today’s criminals are much more sophisticated about using the telephone, mail and internet as a means of gaining access to the elderly’s money. While underreported, the annual financial loss by victims of elder financial abuse is estimated to be at least $2.6 billion, according to the National Council on Aging.

Bank of the West, in tandem with Legal Aid of Nebraska, recently hosted a free Be Aware – Financial Elder Abuse Workshop to help seniors become more aware about protecting their assets.

During the workshop, participants learned about issues affecting senior citizens today, including common scams, signs of financial abuse, and what to do if victimized by financial abuse.

Financial education is an important topic for all ages and, for many seniors who are living on a fixed income, the preservation of assets is especially important to their security and well-being.

Dream Day, helping high school students daydream about their future

Freddy Quidousse — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:22:14 +0000

On 21 March, Dream Day celebrated its 15th anniversary. This national event, held throughout Belgium, gave secondary school students the chance to meet with professionals from a range of sectors for nearly two hours. These professionals were able to share their experiences with a particularly attentive audience.

For many of these students, this meeting helped to clarify their understanding of the career paths available in the banking sector, and to demonstrate that it offers many more opportunities than they could have imagined.

Dream Day is a product of the Dream project, an initiative of the ICHEC-PME centre, which has been supported by BNP Paribas Fortis for the past three years. Its main objective is to support these young people as they think about their education, their future careers, and their future as a whole, showing them the path to the career of their dreams.

This approach has the advantage of building a bridge between school and the professional world helping these young people make the transition more smoothly.

Speed Dating for Job Seekers

Anne-France Simon — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 15:23:02 +0000

As part of the “Service Etude” (Service in Education) project run by the SOS Jeunes – Quartier Libre not-for-profit association, the BNP Paribas Fortis Foundation recently organised an event inspired by the concept of speed dating. The event, held in early March, gave twenty young Brussels residents the opportunity to learn more about the bank and its operations in a unique context.

Two other associations, La Chaloupe (The Lifeboat) and Oranjehuis (The Orange House), participated in the “Service Etude” project as part of Jump, a support programme led by the BNP Paribas Fortis Foundation. The name of this programme is particularly appropriate given that its primary aim is to serve as a springboard for these young people, who are facing varying degrees of difficulty in finding employment.

The programme works with young people between the ages of 16 and 25-30, most of whom have dropped out of school, have troubled home lives and/or are facing some other form of social exclusion. Through their participation in voluntary projects, they learn to help others, to take responsibility, and generally to become the adults that they will need to be when the time comes for them to enter the workforce.

A day of speed dating, professional tools for a lifetime!

Get Ready to Succeed

Krasimira Antimova — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:57:56 +0000

A nationwide initiative called “Get Ready to Succeed” is aimed at providing financial support to disadvantaged youth, particularly orphans, in Bulgaria. The program identifies young people with exceptional academic results at the high school or university level, and provides them with the funding they need to pursue their studies further. The scholarships offered each cover a 10-month period of education.

The criteria for choosing the winners are based on their grades from the previous year as well as on their social status. For the academic year 2012-2013 winners included 32 school students and 55 university students.

In recognizing these students’ accomplishments despite the difficulties they face, “Get Ready to Succeed” is meant to provide further motivation for these young people, and in the long run, to improve their prospects for employment.

The project is organized by the Bulgarian Charity Aid Foundation and supported by Foundation BNP Paribas Bulgaria.

Promoting Non-Violence among Children

Krasimira Antimova — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 11:13:50 +0000

Given the unprecedented rise in school violence – from verbal bullying to physical assault — a new initiative was launched in Bulgaria, aiming at developing social intelligence in children and promoting non-violence.

In the frame of the project, organized by Totchitsa Press with the financial support of Foundation BNP Paribas Bulgaria, the book “La violence et la non-violence” by Michel Puech, Brigitte Labbe and Jacques Azam, was published this autumn in Bulgarian. The book was selected for its sound content and lively, accessible style. It comprises stories and discussion points that address the subject from different sides, as well as suggestions for debate. The publishing house promoted its use in discussion groups and thus provided teachers and school psychologists with a valuable resource to start building a better community values among young students.

This initiative addresses the cause rather than the symptoms by teaching children to be part of a group – and of society. The focus is on primary school students aged 7-12 because this is the time where social habits are formed – often for good. A secondary audience, however, are parents and educators: the book might help them re-think their positions and their social obligations.

Thanks to the additional support of employees of BNP Paribas S.A. – Sofia Branch who purchased books, many books were delivered free of charge to teachers throughout Bulgaria.

A continuing effort in financial education in Hong Kong

Joyce Leung — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 10:06:35 +0000

In Hong Kong, BNP Paribas has once again has provided support to a financial education programme to help low-income and single-parent families better understand saving and credit.

The bank has joined the Hong Kong Association of Banks and Hong Kong Council of Social Service to offer 12 workshops, running until February 2013, to the benefit of close to 500 people.

Thanks to the committed volunteers, the bank hosted a successful workshop on November 3 and participated in two other workshops.

In an inflationary environment, with a widening gap between the haves and have-nots, financial planning can help families build assets and create wealth that will improve standard of living.

Financing classroom libraries in Morocco

Marie-Annonciade Petit — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 11:37:13 +0000

In collaboration with Al Jisr, a not-for-profit association that builds partnerships between schools and companies, the BMCI Foundation is providing schools across Morocco with books in both French and Arabic.

On 18 October 2012, new classroom libraries were officially opened in 20 public primary schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. The directors of BMCI’s entities, who were involved in and contributed to this initiative, made the final selection of the schools.

The BMCI Foundation decided to expand its commitment to supporting education by providing 20 additional public schools with libraries this year. These schools are located across Morocco, in Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier and Casablanca. The Foundation provided more than 15,000 books in French and Arabic for a total of 120 classroom libraries in the 5 cities, enabling more than 10,000 students to learn and grow!

Furthermore, the BMCI Foundation also contributed more than 450 computers to these same schools as part of the “Green Chip” project, an innovative project that recycles and dismantles used IT equipment.

This donation is part of the bank’s efforts to promote sustainable development in Morocco.

An arts programme for children from all walks of life

Yunis Lee — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 08:37:03 +0000

Over the next two years, BNP Paribas Singapore will be contributing to The Business Times Budding Artists Fund (BT BAF). This donation will enable more than 100 children from low-income families to pursue arts training at The Little Arts Academy (LAA) Children Division.

BNP Paribas’ decision to become an Outreach Partner for the Children Division will allow the LAA to almost double the number of children currently enrolled in its arts programme and to reach full capacity for its weekday classes, making arts education accessible to as many children as possible, regardless of their socioeconomic background.

LAA, managed by The Old Parliament House Limited, runs a two-year fully sponsored Arts Exposure Programme for children and beneficiaries of BT BAF. These young budding artists, aged 7 to 12, get training in Music, Theatre, Dance and Visual Arts which leads to a recognised certification of performance. It is the only centre in Singapore which provides a unique multidisciplinary approach to the arts.

The funding will cover costs like training, books and materials for more than 100 beneficiaries during their two-year arts education at LAA.

Smart Start: Giving students a second chance with Rise-Up

Valérie Sueur — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 08:48:10 +0000

The Rise-Up project is an innovative, reengagement programme for young people who need a ‘second’ chance to achieve in education. It works with young people who are at risk of social deprivation, gang culture, crime, exclusion from school, and who lack family support.

Rise-Up has three key phases…

Interested? Read about the project on the Smart Start blog!