Stokvels indaba moves to Mamelodi East
FOLLOWING the resounding success at the Soweto leg of the Stokvels and Burial Societies Indaba at the Soweto Theatre last month, the road show moves to Ikageng Hall in Mamelodi East, Tshwane, on October 15 and 16.
The main objective of the Indaba, hosted by Tyvision Media, is creating a platform for stakeholders to engage around forming solutions to their challenges.
The indaba road show is in partnership with Old Mutual and the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE).
Stokvels are a group of saving schemes that provide mutual financial assistance as well as social and entertainment needs.
These take different forms depending on the purpose of the scheme, ranging from burial stokvels, savings/money stokvels and groceries stokvels to investment stokvels and birthday celebration stokvels.
According to a survey undertaken by African Response, stokvels are a robust market in the area of traditional collective saving and are estimated to be worth some R44-billion.
There are an estimated 8.6 million stokvel members in South Africa and an estimated 421 000 stokvels in total.
The Indaba road show encourages ordinary South Africans to engage inter-actively with senior representatives of financial services organisations.
The Indaba strives to empower members with information that will assist towards better decisionmaking and participation in the economy through their stokvels and burial societies.
Through its partnership with the JSE, the Indaba will provide participants with information on how to participate in the buying and selling of shares.
JSE head of marketing Mpho Ledwaba says encouraging and driving an investment and saving culture is a key focus of the JSE’s strategy of making investment accessible to all South Africans.
The JSE is committed to help improve financial literacy and for some years now, we have run a number of initiatives to encourage South Africans to invest on the stock exchange.”
The Indaba also aims to create a bridge between the informal economy and the mainstream economy by holding sessions that deal with the workings of the economy in understandable language.
We believe it is through hosting this annual Indaba, as well as using media platforms such as radio and television, that the ordinary man on the street can begin to appreciate the power they have when it comes to their money.
They also need to be aware of ways in which their hard-earned money can create more value for them, and understand how their investment is making a contribution to the country’s economy,” says Thabiso Masudubele, the managing director of Tyvision Media and the founder of the Stokvels and Burial Societies Indaba.
Masudubele says, Being such an important sector, we seek to encourage these groups not to see themselves as mere informal groups, but as important clients of financial institutions.
The relationship between stokvels/burial societies and financial institutions must be reviewed with the appreciative understanding of the important role that these groups play in the business of financial institutions.”