Danika Nell is a Grade 10 student at Boissevain School and one of her teachers encouraged her to take part in the My Money My Future: Canadian Financial Education Challenge and she end up placing third in the country.

The Canadian Foundation for Economic Education (CFEE) – a not-for-profit, non-partisan, charitable organization – partnered with CIBC to challenge youth across Canada to create new tools and resources to help young Canadians improve their financial knowledge, skills and capability.

The contest was open to high school students between the ages of 14 and 18. Nell’s book is called Finances for Fun.

“Mr Wettig reached out to me and said the contest might be a good challenge for me so I decided to try it out” said Danika Nell.

“It’s about teaching youth about financial literacy so I chose to make an interactive story book and other contestants made things like board games and websites and things like that. Our personal finance class was introduced a few years ago and I think it’s great because it teaches you about life and using money, debt, using a credit card, buying a house or buying a car. I think they want us to know more so we don’t head to college without knowing anything about money.”

Students are challenged to be creative and to draw upon their talents, skills, and passion to create a new resource that could be used to teach other youth about money and how to achieve a healthy financial life and future.

“I went with a book that would focus on youth between the ages of seven to 10. Most other projects were aimed at financial literacy for high school students. I thought if I could make a fun and easy to follow book it would make the younger kids more prepared when they get to high school” said Nell.

The 16 year old was thrilled to win her provincial contest. She was hoping for the best at the next level and is happy to take third place which carries a prize of $2,500. “I’ll probably use it for university or when I get older do some investing or something like that.”

“I have a printed out copy of Finances for Fun and tried it out with a Grade 4 class at Boissevain School and they responded really well and thought it was super fun. Hopefully the school can use it for years to come.”

While she had fun with the financial literacy contest Danika Nell plans to pursue an education that will take her into the medical field.