The Education Counsellor Fernando Rey chaired the first talks on financial education and entrepreneurship that the María Jesús Soto Foundation has organised for the benefit of the Mexican educational system. In two talks given to the students of Mexico City’s Colegio Benedictino and Colegio Guadalupe, Rey insisted on the need for this type of training. “Without economics we cannot understand anything,” he told the students. “And children also experience household economic difficulties when they occur, which is why it is important that they understand the reasons for what is happening and how the systems work.”
The counsellor also stressed that, beyond purely financial schemes, both the economy and history have to be considered “from the standpoint of values, the need to share and solidarity. Because it is clear that great social differences give rise to violence and are not sustainable.”
When it comes to entrepreneurship, Rey insisted that “the entrepreneurial mindset is not only that which results in the creation of a company, but that of permanent creativity, setting goals and fighting to achieve them.”
Similarly, he encouraged the students, especially female ones, to take charge of their lives and strive to be independent, while setting goals and ensuring they “get their act together” to achieve them.
For her part, the president of the Foundation, María Jesús Soto, reiterated to the near 300 attendees (aged between 14 and 16) that a nation’s economy is created by its people, who are the ones who make the decisions. And she urged them to never let the entrepreneurial spirit die. “The real failure is not trying anything, the important thing is to take initiatives irrespective of whether they turn out well or badly. But those that let their entrepreneurial spirit die no longer have anything to contribute to society.”
