Hello Hello,

Two Hello’s, simply because it’s my second introduction to the same family, maybe different households, but the same family.

It was March, 2 years ago, when I wrote my first introductory Avo blog - introducing myself to my new family (Avocado Vision).

Indeed since arriving at Avo, I have been stretched, loved and challenged. The result - a young woman who has a better understanding of her strengths, thresholds and possibly even my life purpose. This learning converted to the evolution of my next life within the Avo family - Key Account Manager for Footprint.

What does that mean for me? Most importantly, it means I have strong permission to use my FUTURIST strength - which means I am constantly inspired by the future… what could be… not settling for today’s woes and challenges, but constantly looking for a better tomorrow.

In a nutshell, that is what Footprint means to me. As Account Manager, Ambassador and Activator of Footprint projects, it gives me great pleasure to dedicate every day to finding new ways of using this incredible vehicle to bring messages to, educate, and up-skill the people of South Africa. I’m helping them make better decisions in their lives, for their families and taking power of their future.

Its an incredible gift for me to continue what I call my Ambassadorial Journey, which started in Umtata, Transkei… I began as an ambassador for my family and my school, when I moved to out of home at the age of 13 to pursue a modelling career in Johannesburg. Then I became an ambassador for the youth of South Africa when I won Miss Teen South Africa, then my ambassadorial roles took me forward to the World Economic Forum and Fairplay For Africa (HIV Campaign all over Africa). Now, Footprint - I literally represent the future of South Africa, ensuring that I share the capabilities of Footprint to empower those less fortunate and take our country to the next level, to a level of individual independence and empowerment.

According to Marcus Buckingham, author of Now Discover Your Strengths, the other part of the FUTURISTIC person, is the ability to lift the spirits of other people, as they often look to you to paint a picture that lifts their sights and therefore their spirits. I plan to practise this skill and share it with the whole of Africa by using this phenomenal organisation called Footprint, as we “build Africa, one person at a time”!

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I’m proud to announce that we have just broken the           20 000 barrier! 

20 609 people across SA trained in basic Financial literacy skills by Footprint over the past 18 months!!!!! 

Footprint team… all over SA….take a bow!!!

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Breaking news!!!! I’m really excited to announce that our FEF project was presented to parliament last Thursday by the MD of the Postbank, amid great accolades and applause!

As of yesterday our trainers had trained 8 349 people across South Africa on our basic financial literacy programme Money fo’ Sho’ within the scope of this particular project. I’m really proud of my team that has been working on this project. Both the HO logistics team, and the trainers in the field have been working their butts off to make this thing fly like a bird. Just for this project we have started 12 new micro-enterprises with our field trainers who are learning how to run training businesses in rural and semi-urban communities.

People are changing their lives all over this project, and I’m excited to have that recognized by parliament. It feels like we’re one step closer to being able to make a significant impact in the South African landscape.

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I continue to be humbled by the work we’re doing out there.  Today I heard 3 stories with exactly the same theme, happening on just 1 day:

3 of our trainers across the country received excited phone calls from their learners: each call described how the learner had taken the certificate along to a job interview, and were successful in landing a job – two at the local banks, and one at the local toll road company!

Although the certificates don’t actually serve as a qualification, they are testimony to the keenness of people who will willingly give up a day to learn more about managing their own finances more effectively. The training also allowed them to talk more confidently about issues that, in the past, were just too overwhelming to address.

It’s an exciting, if unintended benefit of the work.  We’re still contributing to building South Africa, one person at a time!

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BEE has incredible opportunities in this country and in your business, but only if it’s being used effectively.

So how exactly does one use it effectively you ask?  BEE doesn’t have to have the negative connotations that it has been given, Jules chats about this in today’s Star Workplace.

Read the scanned version here for more information.

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This is a blog of bliss!

Today I want to share with you all some amazing news, so far our Footprint Team has trained over 9800 people!  What an amazing accomplishment, especially since Footprint is so young. This number will simply keep on growing, in a week or two we will hit over 10000…  This means 10000 lives changed in a significant way, If you just think about how many people these 10000 have told and shared their education with, the number could be exponentially more.

Well done Footprint Team, we are all so incredibly proud of you all!

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Well, I just teared up. We sent one of our Footprint training mentors, Jill Wellbeloved, out into the field in Bronkhorstspruit to do some interviews and write an article about the entrepreneurial spirit of one of our trainers, Tshepo Malibe.

Shew! She brought back such a touching article that gave us exactly the feelgood fix we all chase in Footprint, and I wanted to share some poignant extracts from Jill’s article…

Tshepo said that learning to be a financial literacy trainer had “changed my life”. Now after having trained 379 learners he says “To see other people changing is a wonderful thing - especially that everything revolves around money. You can see it in their eyes during the workshop - a light goes on! As a trainer I feel as if I’m contributing to the community and making a difference. This work also helps my entrepreneurial spirit, not only by seeing training as a business, but I am now seeing opportunities all around me. Kwaggafontein is growing and I can be part of that.”

And…

Annah was really excited that she had attended the course before Christmas. “I spent wisely this Christmas. This course helped me make my Christmas grocery list. I worked out my budget and looked at my needs and wants, so was able to see what was important and what was not. I stuck to my list so didn’t spend money on unimportant things. This made me happy.”

Also…

Grace … added, “Tshepo managed to be patient with us older people when trying to teach us. This is unusual for young people who are always impatient. And because of this, I have managed to save for school fees for my young ones this year. I didn’t punch my money away in December and so I can pay for school fees. So my young ones also benefited from the workshop.” 

And then…

Busisiwe grabbed Tshepo’s attention and told him, “You must get the young people to come to your workshop. If I had known this information when I was young I would have been a rich woman now!”

You see, this is the kind of thing we dreamed of when Footprint was conceived in our hearts – helping South Africans become empowered, one person at a time.

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We go live next week in Bronkhorstspruit with four trainers training Money Fo’ Sho’ under the PostBank and Wizzit Bank banners, sponsored by the Financial Education Fund in the UK.

We are proud to be part of a great experiment, a test case to see which financial literacy model works best in the African context. FEF is running 9 projects across the continent, and the ones that yield the best results will become models for future investment in the upliftment and poverty alleviation in Africa.

Footprint’s peer-trainer model is being put to the test, and we already know it works well. In addition, though, we are seeing our entrepreneurial model taking flight. We have made some strides in understanding how to ignite and support our trainers in starting training SMEs of their own with whom we can walk in sustainable partnership. Already in all the regions targeted for this project our trainers have been pro-actively activating their community networks, plugging in to local business development and seeing returns on their efforts.

Good luck, Footprint trainers: we wish you all the success you’ve worked so hard for! And know, you are making a real difference to the people who carry this country.

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…or in this case, 250 people at a time!

I am delighted to be able to announce that, at this very minute, our Footprint team has 10 ‘Money fo’ Sho’ ‘ sessions running across Gauteng!  Even as we speak, almost 250 people are engaging in very important financial literacy conversations that will empower them to make critical personal financial decisions for many years to come!  By Friday, we will have trained just under 500 people, and hopefully have tested all our processes, given our trainers some live practice, and also fed 500 people.

This is one of our pilot days to give each of the trainers we engaged to help us run training sessions as part of the FEF project we are rolling out, a chance to practice, be mentored and coached, and build the confidence they need to go out there and bring the message to the people!  By the time we’re done, in about April next year, we will have trained over 10 000 people!!!

Part of the empowerment plan is to encourage grass roots entrepreneurs to supply us with catering for the training days, train the actual training programme, and get involved in sourcing learners to fill the training sessions.  Today, the Boikamosa Boys excelled in their learner sourcing project - we had crowds of people lining up to be trained (even turning some away, as we can only cater for 25 people per classroom: will revisit there again tomorrow).  Lele Direko, our grassroots caterer, has been bustling all over Soweto ensuring that everyone is well fed.

I am so proud of the Avo and Footprint team that has stood together to make the empowerment dream a reality - all of you have worked your beanies off to get to this point.  Take a bow.  You are all just awesome!!!

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Jules’ new article entitled “Finding ways to reach people is a creative exercise” featured in the Star Workplace newspaper yesterday.

Less than perfect conditions have lead to trainers having to use their imagination in delivering our material effectively. Ask yourself how much it really matters to have all those worldly luxuries, like… well, like chairs and tables?  For some communities, in a training hall, chairs and tables is not a must have but a nice to have.

Read Jules’ article here to find out the whole story.

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