The Trinidad and To­ba­go Se­cu­ri­ties and Ex­change Com­mis­sion (TTSEC) in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and Fi­nan­cial Sec­tor Stake­hold­ers host­ed its sec­ond In­vestor Ed­u­ca­tion (IE) Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach Road­show on Wednes­day.

Un­der the theme “Em­pow­er­ing Com­mu­ni­ties Through Fi­nan­cial Lit­er­a­cy and In­vestor Ed­u­ca­tion’, the road­show aimed to equip mem­bers of the pub­lic with the knowl­edge and re­sources nec­es­sary for them to make wise fi­nan­cial and in­vest­ment de­ci­sions.

In his open­ing re­marks, Vice Chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, Coun­cil­lor Nas­sar Ho­sein, made the point that fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy is no longer a lux­u­ry but rather a ne­ces­si­ty. He told the au­di­ence that in to­day’s fast-paced world, man­ag­ing mon­ey wise­ly is key to se­cur­ing our fu­tures. He added, “Yet many of us have not been taught how to bud­get ef­fec­tive­ly, in­vest wise­ly, or avoid fi­nan­cial pit­falls. This lack of knowl­edge of­ten leads to poor fi­nan­cial de­ci­sions, un­nec­es­sary debt, and, in some cas­es, fi­nan­cial hard­ship.”

He fur­ther em­pha­sised, “As a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion, we recog­nise the need to build strong, re­silient com­mu­ni­ties, and fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy plays a fun­da­men­tal role in achiev­ing that goal. A fi­nan­cial­ly ed­u­cat­ed com­mu­ni­ty is a thriv­ing com­mu­ni­ty- one that can make in­formed de­ci­sions about sav­ing, in­vest­ing, and wealth cre­ation.”

Pro­vid­ing an overview of the TTSEC’s In­vestor Ed­u­ca­tion Pro­gramme, Ellen Lewis, Man­ag­er of Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tion and Ed­u­ca­tion, un­der­scored to par­tic­i­pants that with the right knowl­edge, our com­mu­ni­ties can ben­e­fit from fi­nan­cial in­de­pen­dence, op­por­tu­ni­ties for wealth ac­cu­mu­la­tion, and a re­duc­tion in eco­nom­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

Pre­sen­ta­tions were de­liv­ered by: Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go; Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change, Se­cu­ri­ties Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Mu­tu­al Funds As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

In ad­di­tion to the ed­u­ca­tion ses­sion, there was an open air ex­hi­bi­tion in­volv­ing:

Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries

Min­istry of Sport and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment

Min­istry of Youth and Na­tion­al Ser­vice

Na­tion­al En­tre­pre­neur­ship De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed

Trinidad and To­ba­go Stock Ex­change Lim­it­ed, and the

Cen­tral Bank of Trinidad and To­ba­go - Of­fice of the Fi­nan­cial Ser­vices Om­buds­man.