Participants complete financial literacy training

FIFTY participants of a week-long training at Bumayong in Lae, Morobe, on Monday graduated after undergoing training in mind transformation, engaging in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and knowing more about finance.
The financial literacy training was conducted by Bank South Pacific, while mind transformation and SMEs as well as family sexual violence seminar were carried out by Morobe Empowerment Youth Organisation (Meyo) and other facilitators from major institutions in Morobe.
The aim of the training was to empower people with skills and knowledge in starting small businesses.
A training participant, Auwa Taiyong, while addressing the participants said it was interesting to see facilitators coming from the University of Technology, Angau Memorial Hospital and a herbalist who contributed in facilitating the success of the training.
“With the knowledge and skills you have now, plan your action and action your plan,” Taiyong said.
“Don’t just plan and leave it. Then the plan will only do a paper progress with the real thing not happening.”
He raised a concern that the 30 per cent equity at the National Development Bank for people to start up small businesses was too demanding for ordinary people.
“Can the authorities be more flexible by reducing the 30 per cent equity requirement to 10 per cent so more people would have chances to access that money and start business?”
Taiyong said it was one of the main problems why many people were not actively involved in SMEs, despite being interested in acquiring loans as starting capital.
During the graduation, the 52 adult participants received certificate of participation for Financial Literacy issued by Bank South Pacific and Mind Transforming and SME issued by Meyo.