Mariam's Story

Mariam discovered Momentum when a representative from Momentum came to speak at her high school. Even though Mariam was only in grade eleven at the time, and hadn’t been thinking too much about life after high school (other than the fact that she knew she wanted to attend university) Mariam liked what she heard that day. As it turned out, most of the students found it interesting to hear about job training and career planning, money management, even starting your own business.

“I especially liked the sound of Youth Fair Gains,” says Mariam today. “So that was the program I enrolled in.” Youth Fair Gains helps young people, aged 16-21, save money through financial management courses and an incentive program that gives three dollars to every dollar you save. That means even with the program limit of $50 saved per month, you could still save as much as $600 over the course of the one-year program — and then have Momentum match your $600 with an additional $1,800. If you were to take the program, as Mariam did, over the course of your senior year of high school, you could have as much as $2,400 in the bank by the time you graduated.

“One thing I felt sure of was that I wanted to go to university,” says Mariam. “Youth Fair Gains seemed like a great way to save money for tuition, and to learn about money, too.” Mariam also liked the classroom atmosphere (“totally relaxed and friendly”) and the structure of the program, which sees a class of 15 or 20 students meeting every two weeks. “I liked the variety of topics, too,” says Mariam. “We’d learn about asset management during one class, and for the next class the topic would be how to maintain good credit, or how to plan a budget. And I was surprised at how casual the instructors and guest speakers made it all sound. What I had thought would be very difficult to grasp, actually turned out to be pretty easy to understand, and really interesting, too.”

Mariam has already recommended Youth Fair Gains to her friends, many of whom plan to enroll in the program. “My little sister plans to take the program, too — as soon as she’s old enough!”