corporate social responsibility

At Zanaco, we realise that we do not perform our business activities in a vacuum. We operate our business in an environment where there are people. Improving the lives of these people is very important to us. As a socially responsible organization, we explored a number of initiatives that would help the quality of lives of not only our customers but the Zambian public at large. We settled for a program called Financial Literacy.

At Zanaco, we define Financial literacy as ‘the ability to make informed judgments and to take effective actions regarding the current and future use and management of money” and/or ‘the ability for people to understand the financial threats and opportunities affecting them as a result of their own behavior’.  Financial literacy includes the ability to understand financial choices, plan for the future, spend wisely and manage and be ready for life events such as job loss or saving for retirement.  At the heart of the definition of financial literacy, is the term “informed,”. It is the effective use of information in the decision making process that separates the more literate from the less literate decision.

We settled for the Financial literacy project to make tangible contribution to the increase in financial literacy in Zambia and the project will endeavour to:

• Improve personal financial literacy and financial management skills among people in employment starting with Zanaco staff. An assessment has already been done on areas of focus.

• Increase and improve financial literacy and awareness among children while having fun. This will be done using well tested simulation games.

• ncrease and improve financial literacy and awareness among and the general adult population and,

• Promote entrepreneurship and financial independence among SMEs by offering free training on various topics.

 Various activities will be undertaken both at national and branch level to achieve the above stated objects.