Fawzia's Story

Like a lot of 17 year-olds, Fawzia has a part-time job as a sales clerk at a mall. Also like a lot of 17 year-olds with part-time jobs, Fawzia got pretty good at blowing her pay cheque, sometimes in a single day. "I was getting tired of seeing my bank account empty all the time," says Fawzia, "and often my money was going right back to the mall." While she has since graduated, it was at her high school that Fawzia first heard about Momentum. She happened to overhear a conversation outside her guidance counselor’s office. She remembered the name "Momentum" and looked them up later online. On the Momentum website, she remembers the program that caught her eye—Youth Fair Gains.

Youth Fair Gains is a program designed to help young people save money, and is made up of money management courses and an incentive program. The incentive program means that whatever money you have saved at the end of the one-year course, up to $50 a month, Momentum will match it three dollars to one. So if you manage to save, say, $500, Momentum will give you an additional $1,500. Sounds like a pretty good deal, right? That’s because it is. But, as Fawzia or any other young person that has taken the program will tell you, it’s not so easy. It takes dedication, discipline, and a good dose of will power. And all that money you save? You can’t just blow it. That’s part of the deal. The money has to be spent on something related to employment or education, like tuition, or business equipment.

And while it can be tough, Fawzia says the rewards are truly great. "Now, I always have money, when before, I never had money. It’s not that I make more money than before—I don’t—it’s just that I learned about how to manage it better, and how to save it. Now I’m proud when I look at my bank balance, because I have something to show for all my hard work." Fawzia says that Youth Fair Gains has actually changed her lifestyle in dramatic ways, and having more money is just one aspect of it. Indeed, when asked what recent achievement she was most proud of, Fawzia replied, "Less shopping!" Now that’s a success story!