By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staf

JOINING their counterparts in other banks, Citigroup employees became teachers during “Teach Children to Save Day,” with 47 Citigroup employees spending over 150 hours off their work schedule to teach over 750 third through fifth grade students in four public schools.
According to Citigroup, it has been active in this initiative since 2003 and has taught over 1,700 students on Guam about the importance of saving money.
In 2004, Citigroup and the Citigroup Foundation announced a 10-year, $200 million global commitment to financial education. In addition, through Citigroup’s volunteerism initiative, more than 8,500 Citigroup employees have given their time and talent to promote financial education.
Using the Citigroup Financial Education curriculum, Citigroup employees on Guam taught students how to be smart shoppers, why it is important to save and where to save.
Visual aids included laptop computers, calculators, play money, and posters. Games, activity books and group work helped students interact with one another as well as with Citigroup volunteer teachers.
Madhu Seshadri, Citigroup Country officer, said his company is very pleased to be reaching out to more students through Citigroup’s growing number of employee volunteers
“We realize that students are aware of terms such as ‘phising,’ ‘identity theft’ and ‘online banking’. We would like to thank the principals, faculty and staff of Price Elementary School, FQ Sanchez Elementary School, Merizo Elementary School and Marcial A. Sablan Elementary School for allowing us opportunities to interact with their students. We are very proud of our progress and applaud our employees’ efforts to improve the communities where we work and live,” Seshadri said.