Volunteering to Build Communities with Junior Achievement

For Global Community Day on June 22nd, Citi employees go out into their communities to donate their time to causes that matter to them. One important partner that Citi works with is Young Enterprise, the UK affiliate of Junior Achievement Worldwide. Young Enterprise focuses on teaching financial literacy for students and inspiring young people to achieve through enterprise.

To learn more about Citi's collaboration with Young Enterprise, read the Q&A below with Rosalind Groves, a volunteer and Product Manager within Treasury and Trade Solutions EMEA at Citi in London, as she shares her experience working with the organization:


What work did you do with Young Enterprise on Global Community Day least year?

Last year I taught in a Primary School in Hampstead, North West London, alongside 12 other Citi Volunteers. Our product team was placed together in a class of twenty 8-year-old children to run the lessons for the day. We introduced them to the different industries in the UK and the supply chains within those industries; e.g. how apples get from the orchards in rural England to the supermarkets in London via the apple market, the factory, the warehouse, distribution etc.

How does volunteering with Young Enterprise contribute to improving the community?

Young Enterprise brings a new dimension into the academic schooling environment. As a charity, they argue that an excessively narrow focus on academic skills and exams can fail to give students the employability they need. Through this type of volunteering - bringing those in banking into a school - we help to ensure that the children in a community start to develop skills that will help make them more employable one day - skills such as teamwork, practical thinking and business-like behavior.

What was the most rewarding part of your work last year?

Watching the children engage with everyday life and begin to realize and learn how some things from their day-to-day lives actually work! Many of them heard their parents talking about paying taxes, but they'd never realized the link between taxation and public spending - so they left school that day understanding some of the dynamics of our national economy - e.g. understanding how tax funds can result in the street lamps being lit at night, bins being emptied and the police protecting us.

What are you most proud of from your volunteering experience?

Having completed Young Enterprise's Company Programme myself at school, I have seen the true value of this charity and so I'm proud to be able to pass something on to younger people, because someone else took the time to do that for me.

What organization are you volunteering with this year for Global Community Day?

Young Enterprise, again! I'm now the Young Enterprise Champion within the London Volunteer Council. We're going back to a Primary School, this time in Lambeth, South West London, with a team of Citi volunteers.

To learn more about Citi's Global Community Day 2013, visit the Citi Facebook Page or follow the conversation on Twitter by searching #CitiVolunteers.