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SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise), a global not-for-profit organisation that has student teams from universities in more than 40 countries around the world, conducted an exclusive HSBC Financial Literacy Forum in New York in early October.

SIFE's mandate is to simply ‘change the world by helping students to make a worthwhile difference in their communities'.

Student teams are established at universities worldwide, and each of these student teams implements projects, in order to achieve this goal. The SIFE UWA team was formed two years ago and membership comprises of students from commerce, law and health sciences discipline areas.

A SIFE UWA representative was selected to attend the World Forum and according to the SIFE UWA team President Ms Jade Winterton, being invited to participate in this forum was a great honour.

"The invitation is extended from SIFE World Headquarters and the HSBC Global Education Trust and Corporate, Investment Banking and Markets division and only 100 student representatives from 27 countries, each representing their University, will be attending," Jade said.

Jade said one of the key UWA SIFE projects has been the development of a financial literacy skills program aimed at year 10 students entitled Finance for Life (FFL).

"FFL consists of a short presentation covering the basics of personal financial management skills, followed by an interactive game that provides students the opportunity to make saving/spending/investing decisions in a simulated ‘real world setting," she said.

In addition to running this as an interactive game, this year the UWA team has begun developing it as a web-based game, which allows an increase in concepts covered and the ability to sell it to schools as a stand-alone kit.

This development has been supported by two grants from HSBC, and is also directly supported by Marsh Civil, a WA family business company encountered via the Easy Entry Option of the WA Family Business Awards, another SIFE UWA project.