Laura Watts recently resigned as Chief executive officer at SEDI and we wish her all the best in her future work in the area of elder law. We are very pleased to announce that Liz Mulholland, a long-serving SEDI Director, has assumed the role of SEDI’s Interim CEO and, consequently, has stepped down from her role on the Board.

Liz is a well-respected policy consultant with over 20 years experience in national social policy development and voluntary sector capacity building. She is looking forward to working with the SEDI team and with our community, government and corporate partners to advance innovative and effective financial literacy, savings and entrepreneurship initiatives for low-income Canadians.

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Meet the CCFL Trainers!

The CCFL is pleased to introduce our three new trainers: Melanie Buffel, Christina Sackeyfio and Natasha McKenna.
 

Melanie Buffel

Melanie has spent the past 20 years leading grass-roots programs designed to help people overcome financial crisis and develop the skills and confidence to build a wide range of assets. She has served as a loans officer, an employment program manager, a financial literacy facilitator, a money coach and the coordinator of the BC Asset Building Collaborative. Her work is inspired by her strong commitment to social justice and her own experience as a single mom of two.

Melanie finds tremendous satisfaction in empowering people to take more control of their lives and finances. In 2008, she received the SEDI "Passion for Financial Literacy Award" in recognition of her commitment and passion for this work.

Melanie studied in the Community Economic Development Program at Simon Fraser University and is currently completing a Masters of Business Administration, specializing in Community Economic Development, through Cape Breton University. She joined SEDI and the Canadian Centre for Financial Literacy in February and resides in Vancouver, BC. Melanie has been coast to coast, recently offering trainings in Miramichi, New Brunswick and Pemberton, BC.
 

Christina Sackeyfio

Christina is excited about helping young people achieve empowerment. A former director for Parkdale Project Read’s Literacy Through Hip Hop program in Toronto, she brings with her experience in the area of youth literacy. A member of the Ghanaian-Canadian community, Christina has mentored and provided programming for newcomer and first-generation youth in Toronto, and plans to expand her volunteer community work by developing a social enterprise supporting young women in Ghana.

Christina has graduate degrees in Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and Business Administration from the Schulich School of Business. She joined the CCFL in September and has recently returned from delivering a training session in North Claybelt, Ontario.
 

Natasha McKenna

Natasha has years of experience working and volunteering in the non-profit sector developing skills in the areas of program planning, event management and group facilitation. Using her wide range of skills, she has coordinated national programs on financial management and entrepreneurship, contributed to success of community events and festivals, and trained community volunteers.

Natasha is currently working on her Master’s degree in Adult Education and Community Development at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Natasha is committed to learning and supporting others in their learning journeys. She is thrilled to be working with and learning from community organizations across the country. She joined the CCFL in September and recently delivered a training session in her home province of PEI.

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The CCFL is committed to supporting community organizations working to build the financial literacy of low-income Canadians. Our goal is to connect practitioners with the information and resources they need to support innovative, relevant, and effective financial literacy programs. On the CCFL website you will now find links to downloadable activity sheets from our curriculum (currently in English only), and a map of the community organizations in our network of CCFL trained facilitators. We will continue to add new resources and content to the website so stay tuned for more. Check it out here. Come join in on the conversation with us at www.facebook.com/sedicommunity where we share links to resources, interesting news, and SEDI updates.

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SEDI is proud and excited to introduce START, a pilot project on financial literacy and matched savings aimed at low-income individuals that we are launching in three cities across Ontario: Ottawa, North Bay and Windsor. SEDI’s START partners are Causeway Work Centre , Yes! Employment Services of Nipissing and the Youth and Family Resource Network of Windsor/Essex.

The START project is a matched savings pilot project designed to test the assumption that low-income Ontarians living in, or on the waitlist for social housing, will respond positively to financial incentives in order to set and achieve personal savings goals and improve their economic prospects.

In addition to the 3:1 matched savings incentives, participants will receive supports such as financial literacy training and case management from the community-based partners. SEDI received funding through the Social Housing Services Corporation (SHSC) to pilot the START project and provide the matched savings to up to 500 individuals so they can save for housing, education or entrepreneurship.

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One of the main objectives of the CCFL is to increase the capacity for community organizations in Canada to offer financial literacy to low-income community members. Since its inception the CCFL has partnered with over 400 community organizations, training over 1100 staff to offer financial literacy in communities across Canada. We are privileged to meet so many amazing people across the country fiercely dedicated to the well-being of their communities.

In October, CCFL Trainers Melanie Buffel and Christina Sackeyfio travelled to beautiful Miramichi, New Brunswick to offer a two-day Financial Literacy Training of Trainers in partnership with Douglas Cooling at Miramichi Adult Learning Inc (MALI). The training was attended by 18 staff representing a range of programs at the adult education centre.

The session was great fun, very interactive and provided lots of ideas and inspiration for all of us who attended. Doug was a gracious host and followed up with this note:

“This is a quick note to express our appreciation for the opportunity to receive the financial literacy training from your organization. It was an overwhelming success both with the materials and largely in part to the two facilitators-Christina and Melanie, they were absolutely wonderful in the delivery of these sessions. You are to be congratulated for having people of this ability and knowledge of the product who believe so much in what they are presenting. Please pass along our thanks to both of them and your organization. This program will now allow us to provide a very valued piece of information to their progress in their lives.”

If you are from a nonprofit community based organization and would like to partner with us to host a CCFL Financial Literacy Training of Trainers, click here for more information on the training and how to apply.

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On November 25th, 2011 SEDI announced the 11 community organizations that have been awarded a total of $741,543 from the TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund to support financial literacy. SEDI administers the TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund and selected the eleven grantees from 157 applications submitted by organizations focused on serving, among others, women, at-risk youth, new Canadians, homeless people, seniors, and people with disabilities.

The demand continues to be strong for TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund support, reflecting a critical need for financial literacy in our society, particularly among lower income and vulnerable groups. The grantee projects reflect a diversity of ideas and client groups and will provide great potential for sharing best practices and improving outcomes in the field. A full list of the grantees may be accessed at the website www.sedi.org/grantfund. The next application deadline for the TD Financial Literacy Grant Fund is Thursday, February 2, 2012. Please refer to the website for more information including guidelines, FAQ’s and application forms.

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