I am so happy to see this! I am currently a business school grad student and before bschool, I always avoided all things business related at all costs. One, it was because of lack of interest, but two, also because I was terrified since I knew nothing about it! However, there was no way I can get away with that in business school and in my first semester, one of my professors had us do a stock simulation. I was able to participate and got really interested. I ended up doing research on my own about each company and followed its status every day to monitor what was going on. Even after the simulation ended, I continued checking on those stocks and see how it reflected on the current events. Investment is a big deal these days and it's definitely better to get an earlier start!

Thanks Thomas and Lindana for both of your comments. I agree with both of you that not everyone can be as fortunate as my friend, but also, placing kids of poor financial status in mentoring programs is a step forward. It all simply comes down to having positive influence and exposing these kids to greater things. Letting them know what's out there and what they can achieve if they want it and if they just try. I had originally made this post because my friend's story has always stood out to me and I get inspired by her story.

Hi Daniel, I totally agree with what you are saying here. In order to help a community to improve, it's not just a matter of financial assistance. It's also about utilizing the strengths of the community and improve the community as a whole. Even if there is financial backup, it cannot be guaranteed that a community can get better. And if it does, it is still limited if there is no leadership and no organization to help guide them in the right direction. Furthermore, the needs of every community is different. So you like you said, before providing financial assistance to a community, one must first understand the needs of the community and the resources they already bring to the table. From there, those elements can be leveraged by using financial means to help improve the community. Thank you for bringing awareness to this issue.