July 24, 2025

When BCI employees saw an opportunity to make financial education more accessible to French-speaking students in British Columbia, they took it. 

Drawing on their investment expertise and French language backgrounds, the group delivered Junior Achievement programming to five classes at École Victor-Brodeur on Vancouver Island – bringing essential financial literacy concepts directly to students in their first language, for the first time.  

In the 2023-2024 school year, JA British Columbia delivered over 3,000 programs, but only 17 were delivered in French due to the limited availability of French-speaking volunteer facilitators. This year, thanks to the growing support of French-speaking volunteers including BCIers, the number of French program deliveries doubled to 34, expanding access for students across the province. 

As one of Canada’s largest institutional investors, supporting financial literacy education is a natural fit for BCI and our people. Since 2014, over 100 employees have delivered more than 160 JA British Columbia programs reaching 8,000 students across the province, primarily thanks to our grassroots Financial Literacy Committee who champions youth financial literacy education. 

This initiative represents the kind of employee-driven community engagement that defines BCI’s culture of caring, leveraging diverse expertise to give back in the places where we live and work. To empower employees to give back, BCI provides up to 14 hours of paid volunteer time annually to support causes that matter to them.  

While the school year may be done, the group plans to continue the momentum in the fall and encourages others to do the same.  

Learn more about JA British Columbia and how you can get involved: https://jabc.org/