Presented in partnership with the Office of the Dean of Students, Woodsworth College, and the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology at UTM.
Overview
This 5 week program bridges the world of finance and hip-hop and seeks to empower BIPOC students with the ability to navigate barriers and understand their personal finances within current socio-economic structures. The course series will also empower students to ask questions and demand change for greater access and equal opportunity to financial literacy knowledge.
Hip-Hop culture is an artistic response based on resistance to these power structures and grounded on self-determination and the fight for freedom and justice. In the final workshop, participants will deliver presentations in a supportive community cypher using any of the four essential elements of hip hop to produce performance activations relevant to the various personal finance topics or lessons learned over the course of the series. This promises to be a once in a lifetime experience and a unique way to learn about personal finances and community wealth building!
Dr. Radha Maharaj aka Dr. M., will be leading this exciting 5 part workshop series and sharing her considerable economic and financial literacy knowledge and life experience with students in an engaging and activity based format with Hip Hop as the guiding musical and philosophical backdrop.
U of T students who complete all sessions will receive CCR approval, Certificate of Completion and a one time stipend for participating. Application required. Limited Space.
Instructor
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Dr. Radha Maharaj a.k.a. Dr. M.
Dr. M is a financial facilitator and a merchant of imagination. She teaches people of all ages core economic and financial concepts to empower them to make better decisions to have a more secure and prosperous life. She provides avenues regardless of age or knowledge for you to practice and implement these concepts in your daily life. Her books, talks and lectures take common sense to the next level.
Dr. M has a PhD in Economics and currently teaches finance at the University of Toronto, Mississauga campus. She is an actively engaged with working with Toronto’s youth community around financial literacy is the successful author of the The Kidonomics Series of children’s books.
Session Format
In each of the sessions described below, participants will engage in participatory engagement activities such as call and response, media exposure and self-directed exercises to facilitate an embodied understanding of the concepts being covered. Participants will have a chance to express their creativity by utilizing any of the four essential elements of hip-hop to explain what they learn from the process, the impact that this information has on their financial decision making and what actions they will take to work towards their financial goals. These reflections will provide an avenue for participants to challenge and “battle” the social-economic paradigm which currently informs their financial decision making.
Session Breakdown
Establishing An Appropriate Financial Base
In this session participants will identify and deconstruct net worth and self-worth. Participants will examine their perception of self-worth through a series of exercises. They will determine their money mindset, their financial personality, and their risk preference. This self-knowledge will be used to construct their individual financial base.
Financial Foundations
Fundamental to the financial mastery is the knowledge and implementation of the difference between a need and a want. Participants will explore the social construction of and distinction between needs and wants and the impact it has on their financial mastery. Strategies for delayed gratification and ranking of preferences will be studied. Participants will go into current and required future “habits of body and habits of mind” regarding money, to foster and reinvent pathways of self-determination and self-knowledge.
Goal Setting
Participants will actively assess the skills needed for future employment and income earning. They will be guided to establish S.M.A.R.T goals in relation to their desired financial base model and their future employment and income earning aspirations.
Budgeting and Debt Management
Participants will assess the importance of a budget and learn the steps to creating a budget. This session will also cover the various types of debt and debt management strategies for short, medium, and long-term debt.
Financial Planning 101
With a clearer knowledge of self as it relates to money and money mastery, participants will be guided through the creation of their own financial plan based on their current goals and objectives.
Partners
