Over 25 women gathered for Faith & Finance, a meeting designed to shatter barriers to financial literacy by providing direct access to resources and tried-and-true strategies.
Curated by Bloom Events producers Sharlene Skinner and Sergin David, the event equipped women with practical knowledge on investing, leveraging insurance effectively, feasible saving hacks and first-hand success case studies. Lessons were also framed within themes of faith, positioning money management as a key component of stewardship.
During her keynote speech, well-known businesswoman Alice Orie recounted her journey from executing small business ideas at the age of 13 to survive while her family weathered financial hardship.
Orie spoke of how she navigated business pitfalls, intense periods of gossip and scrutiny, and successes during a career spanning more than four decades. She also shared practical approaches to new investments, easily accessible and applicable saving methods, and details on how she centres faith in her life to sustain it all.
Ashwini Singh, an investment analyst at UTC Global Balance Fund, the event’s sponsor, broke down budgeting in the fine print in a workshop-style session. She showed women how salaries can be stretched across expenses and how to make room for realistic saving mechanisms.
Representatives from Sagicor, Deborah Raoul and Sherlon Leon, offered advice on how people can use and leverage various forms of insurance coverage to help advance their financial goals.
Faith & Finance was a clear success, guiding a room of women, primarily in their 30s and older, through the foundational steps to building financial literacy.
“Money is such a heavy topic,” Skinner told St. Lucia Times. “We need more spaces like this overall for us to learn about the nuances of money and to understand how we can be better at being stewards of it. This afternoon, you could see the awareness growing and mindset shifts taking place; that was the purpose of Faith & Finance.”
Bloom Events says this is only the beginning, with follow-up events already in the works.
