Johannesburg - Many of us are very reckless when it comes to money. We tend to go overboard and regret our decisions at a later stage. We splurge on futile things and, at times, prioritise groovers.
In a bid to reel us back in line, comedians Donovan Goliath, Jason Goliath, Lindy Johnson, Tsitsi Chiumya and Conrad Koch have taken a unique approach to teach financial literacy. They are doing it through comedy. This past week, they staged a show at the Theatre on The Square in Sandton City.
Tackling financial literacy, the show was a different way of engaging a tough topic but the perfect way to end the year. In partnership with financial services company Momentum, the creatives identified humour as a passion point for all South Africans, and as such thought to bring a comedy show that would assist South Africans to demystify employee benefits to their clients, members and broader South Africa.
Having people dying of laughter, the show helped drop walls that people may have had towards the topic and it helped drive and land the important aspects around employee benefits. The goal was to educate, and ease adoption and long-term partnerships.
The line-up of comedians spoke about the concept from different points of view. Scenarios were made up about things that could happen if you didn’t claim your benefits or if you did claim them. Speaking about how the ‘Funny Not Funny’ comedy show came to fruition, Donovan Goliath said he had been working with Momentum in trying to get people to understand the concept of employee benefits.
“I’ve been working with Momentum for some time. We’ve been on a roadshow, trying to get people to understand employee benefits. Some time back I did some content for them for a site they had created called Employee Benefits Explained. They started this because a survey was conducted where people said they’d join a company or take a job and just say ‘yes’ to the package offered without understanding what’s been written in the fine print,” he said.
“According to statistics, there is R50 billion worth of unclaimed benefits in South Africa because people don’t know that they have this money owed to them because they didn’t understand what it was about,” he said.
Goliath said a decision was made to get people to listen and understand what the concept of benefits was about, and what they were trying to say.
“We thought, let’s bring comedy into it and relay the message through humour and relatable scenarios.”
On whether South Africans make good decisions when it comes to saving, Goliath believes we don’t.
“In South Africa, we have a crazy spending culture and a terrible saving culture. We don’t have a good savings culture but there’s the consideration that a poverty discussion needs to happen when people don’t have the money to save.
“On the flip side of this, there’s a high-spending culture where people are not thinking about their future. There is a lot of literacy that needs to happen at the school level. I wish there were a lot of things we were taught in school such as simplifying how to apply for a home loan and more – all these complex terms that we learn about very late in life.
“It is needed at the foundation level so we can equip ourselves. Events like these are a step in the right direction,” he said.