Munozovepi Gwata: Nobody is really taught how to manage their personal finances
[bctt tweet=”We want to instill financial literacy skills into children from a very young age so that they can understand money” via=”no”] Munozovepi Gwata is an ambitious entrepreneur and an aspiring Chartered Financial Analysts and Hedge Fund manager. She is the founder of the Aworks, a conglomerate with subsidiaries Arete’ Tech, Kukura Capital NGO and Kukura Capital Investment Trust. Her personal mission statement is to inspire people throughout the African continent and to create innovative solutions that will bring upon development, wealth, and success for the continent. Munozovepi’s goal is to build Awork to the same status and standard of Berkshire Hathaway which she has no doubt that she will accomplish. Why is financial literacy important and why start an organisation that educates people on the matter? I believe financial literacy is extremely important just like learning Maths and English. It is the fundamental skill that equips people with the essential ability to effectively save and make money. Unfortunately, nobody is really taught how to manage their personal finances. Not at one stage in our lives do we come across financial literacy education in the mainstream education system. I find this very alarming and I am a strong advocate that financial literacy should be included in the mainstream curriculum. The consequence that we have now, is that people are not equipped to manage their personal finances and they do not know how to save or grow their money. Therefore, instead of having the opportunity to pass down wealth to the next generation, they are passing down poverty and debt. I felt that I could no longer sit on the sideline and watch this continue to happen, this is when I decided to become a part of the solution and build an organization that addresses the problem. In starting Kukura Capital, did you decide to go solo or have a business partner(s) and why did you decide to go solo/partner up? In starting Kukura Capital, I decided to go solo. I do have a great team of friends and family that help me and soon we will be adding another 8 new team members to the Kukura Capital team. When I started Kukura Capital it was only an idea. A lot of people, even though they shared and agreed with my vision, didn’t share my hard work ethic, and because of this, I did not manage to find a full-time business partner. It still worked out great in the end. I was given a lot of good advice on how to develop the organization, leaned on some great books and to my surprise in such a short time we have managed to pick up and maintain a great momentum. We also have the support from other well established NGO’s and Institutions which is great. When did you establish Kukura Capital and what has been the biggest lesson you have learnt thus far? Kukura Capital was established last year in November and it was inspired by my own journey to learn more about the financial industry. In gathering information, I kept thinking to myself there has to be an easier way to learn about financial literacy, and from there Kukura Capital was born. The biggest lesson I have learnt? I have to say I have learnt so many things, but the biggest lesson is that knowledge is truly power. As an organisation, one of our main goals is to make knowledge about financial literacy easily accessible and to break down the complex concepts of finance and make it simple and easy to understand and apply. Doing such a simple task has proven to be powerful. When you tell an individual of any age, be it a high school student or a young adult, that if you save this amount of money every month and reinvest it either in the market, or in a business and you can get this x% in return, people’s eyes really light up, and they really do change their spending habits. The things people always say to me is: “Why didn’t anybody tell me earlier? I would have been a millionaire a long time ago.” What gave you the courage to start your organization? What advice would you give to someone who is thinking of going into business? Fortunately enough, my past experience in leadership positions and community involvement gave me a lot of confidence to start. Also, having a business and finance background also gave me the confidence to start Kukura Capital. However, to be honest, I didn’t really think too much about it, I really believed what the organization stood for and went for it. That would be my advice to anyone starting a business. In addition to running Kukura Capital I also run a FinTech business and when I started I had plenty of doubts but I quickly moved away from any negative thoughts and just went for it. In addition to that, I will advise anyone who wants to start a business to fully commit to their business and make sure that they love what they do, so even when it gets tough they are still driven to keep going and succeed. [bctt tweet=”I’ll advise anyone who wants to start a business to make sure that they love what they do” via=”no”] You have recently finished a children’s book “The Rich Life of Thabo”, what brought about the decision to write a children’s book on financial literacy and in what format and where will the book be available? I really love this book and wrote it with my talented friend Charisa Mujuru. I am really excited for this book because it is definitely going to inspire a lot of young kids to be like Thabo. Thabo is the main character in the book and he lives in a township and one day he decides that he is tired of never having enough pocket money so him and his sister, under the guidance of their grandmother, decide to start a business. The book really