|
Cathy Gosse introduced today's speaker. Brain Beckles is a graduate of Wilfrid Laurier University. He and his wife Leanne have lived in Waterloo since 1997. Brian has worked in the non-profit sector most of his career at post secondary institutions until recently accepting the position as President and CEO of Junior Achievement (JA) Waterloo Region in October 2017. Brian showed us a 2 minute video about "JA Worldwide" which segmented the work of JA down into 3 main areas: Work Readiness, Financial Literacy an Entrepreneurship. There are over 50 programs in total and JA is represented in 122 Countries. Brian noted that our very own Nicole Pereira was instrumental in launching JA in Japan - way to go, Nicole! JA exists in major cities an rurual communities across the global and their focus is to inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a new global community. They are the largest charitable organization in the world that focuses on educating youth this way and they work with youth from Grades 5-12. JA Canada started in 1955 and is the largest youth business education organization in Canada. There is one national office and 16 charters - one of which is right here in our own community. JA Waterloo Region started in 1970 and their particular focus at that time was to teach financial literacy to youth in our community. They rely on volunteers and corporate sponsorship to bring hands-on learning into the classroom during class time as well as after school. Their Company Program (Grades 9 to 12) is a 20 week night school program that involves the start up and sale of a company. There is no cost to students for this and it is offered at 3 locations (Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge). The in-class programs are run in both local school boards an in about 250 classrooms. The average cost to deliver a program to one class is $700. Approx 4,400 students took part in the program in 2016/17 an they anticipate they will exceed 6,000 students for 2017/18. Grade 7 and 8 students are targeted for the financial literacy program. There were some interesting stats that Brian cited: - JA Students are 50% more likely to own their own business. - For every $1 invested in JA there is a $45 ROI in the community. Impressive talk and great opportunity for Q& A time. Tom E thanked our speaker. |
