Cha-Ching supports Global Money Week 2023

Organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), GMW is an annual global awareness-raising campaign on the importance of ensuring that young people, from an early age, are financially aware and gradually acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviours necessary to make sound financial decisions, and ultimately achieving financial well-being and financial resilience.

GMW’s theme this year, “Plant your money, plant your future” focuses on sustainability and raising awareness on the implications of individual financial behaviour not only on one’s financial future but also on the environment and the society. Their goal with this theme is in line with our ambitions for Cha-Ching, to help young people understand from an early age the connection between financial literacy and their environment, and how their decisions can impact the community around them.

A range of Cha-Ching initiatives took place across our markets to support the global campaign.

Malaysia launched a Cha-Ching Money Adventures contest on their social media page for parents. The goal of the contest was to raise awareness about financial literacy whilst making it fun for families in Malaysia who wished to participate. The first 50 families who helped their children register and share their game progress received shopping vouchers. Our goal was to attract participants from all over Malaysia. As a result, 53 families from thirteen out of fourteen states in Malaysia participated and played the game. From the comments, the children enjoyed playing Cha-Ching Money Adventures and some of them even completed the games with full stars.

Prudential Zambia hosted a financial literacy fair and Cha-Ching children’s party that brought together 1000 children to have fun and learn. The children’s party is an annual initiative which brings together children from the community and also those children who have been taught Cha-Ching at school. This year’s attendance was double the anticipated number of children. It goes to show the impact that Cha-Ching has had across Zambia and shows the eagerness of children to learn financial skills in a fun environment.

The children who attended, learned the fundamental lessons of Cha-Ching: Earn, Save, Spend and Donate, by watching a selection of Cha-Ching videos as well as through a session conducted by Junior Achievement throughout the day. The guest of honour was a young, inspiring boy who gave a presentation on the importance of saving. Over 20 parents stayed back to be part of this amazing experience. The feedback from the event was that they were very appreciative and hoped to see more events like this in the future.

Fifteen staff members volunteered to support the event, which was a great turnout. Overall, it was an amazingly colourful and educational day for children, parents and Prudential staff.

An interschool competition between four public schools on the theme of the importance of financial literacy was organised. In a very convivial atmosphere 60 students participated in the competition. After watching a few Cha-Ching episodes, as teams, students answered questions on how to make a budget, specific details about the Cha-Ching characters and lessons learned. Representatives from the Ministry of Education, our NGO partner, Junior Achievement, Prudential Belife, teachers from the schools and media attended. The testimonies were positive. A representative from the Ministry of Education shared, “Cha-ching is a good way of helping children get more conscious about what money is, they play and learn at the same time.” The Sicogi 8 Primary School was the winner of the competition, after a series of eight stages.

Several activities were organised in Vietnam during GMW, both online and in-person. As part of ongoing efforts to raise financial literacy among children, 9,000 students from 104 schools participated in Cha-Ching’s Smart Kids Smart Money Competition. They were educated about GMW, of which 80 of them directly joined a challenge on the theme of finding a way to help parents, siblings and friends change one of their negative money habits. As part of an online campaign, a free online Cha-Ching class was delivered through the Cha-Ching fan page community on Facebook and the Cha-Ching Money Adventures game was also officially in Vietnamese.

Through a targeted social media campaign, a series of 11 posts and stories on Prudence Foundation’s Facebook and Instagram channels educated users on financial concepts with a spotlight on sustainability. The posts underlined the GMW mission and theme, encouraging ways to be more responsible with one’s financial behaviour and the potential consequences and impact it may have on the surrounding environment. For example, readers learned how donating responsibly can limit waste in the community. Another post promoted the Cha-Ching Money Adventures interactive game where in one game module, children can learn how to better donate their time, money and skills. Over a nine-day period, Prudence Foundation’s social media campaign helped to bring awareness to GMW, successfully reaching over 2.7m people.

With Cha-Ching, we aim to close the financial literacy gap across Asia and Africa by providing practical and engaging tools and resources to children, parents and teachers. So far over 1.2 million children have been taught Cha-Ching in schools, with over 37,000 teachers trained on the curriculum. Our efforts this year will take us to 2 million children being taught the fundamentals of wise money management this year.