Breakfast and financial education: help us deliver this foundation

This article is part of the FT’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign joint seasonal appeal with Magic Breakfast

Since the Financial Times launched its first seasonal appeal nearly 20 years ago, a common theme has run through our charitable efforts.

Previous campaign partners have focused on a range of good causes, but we have often linked up with charities that help feed and educate young people: from Camfed, our debut charity partner, which funds female learning in Africa, to WaterAid and Action Against Hunger, which aim to tackle more existential threats.

This festive season, we fused those longtime interests in nutrition and education. The FT’s homegrown charity FLIC (the FT Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign) teamed up with Magic Breakfast for a joint appeal with a twin focus: the crucial difference that proper nutrition can make to young people’s capacity to learn, via healthy breakfasts at school; and the crucial difference that learning financial life skills can make to young people’s capacity to go on to live successful lives.

With the support of FT readers, we aim to raise more than £100,000 to expand Magic Breakfast’s provision of free school breakfasts and accelerate the rollout of FLIC’s programme of financial education for schools. The campaign will run until the end of the month and donations can be made at ft.com/donate. If you haven’t yet donated, please do consider supporting our work. Individual and corporate donations alike will be enormously appreciated.

Amid a troubled world, there are a wide range of deserving causes we can all support — ranging from charities that support those in war zones or alleviate natural disasters to those that provide for the destitute.

The work of FLIC, which I chair, and Magic Breakfast does not aim to compete with such vital causes. But in tackling the best ways to support the next generation, you don’t get more foundational than our charities’ endeavours. As the articles from this seasonal appeal have illustrated, there is a growing realisation across the world — from Finland to Indonesia — that nutritious food in schools can make a vast difference to future lives.

In our FT View to launch the appeal, we highlighted a recent report by the UK’s Education Policy Institute, a think-tank, that found under-fives who experience food poverty are more likely to have weak maths skills and cognitive development. We followed up with an analysis of the junk food crisis — and related obesity levels — afflicting children. A healthy eating initiative at Hackney’s Mandeville Primary School has been a trend-beating success, with deputy head Kaltum Yusuf reporting that kids “just have more energy”. 

Good financial education initiatives have been no less impactful. Barely a year after we began rolling out our curriculum, FLIC is already present in more than 600 schools across England, with moves across the rest of the UK planned for 2025. A grounding in how basic finance works — from the principles of credit cards and buy now, pay later loans to the benefits of fixed-rate mortgage deals and tax-incentivised savings — is ever more important, as consumers are bombarded with online marketing and scams that often start on the social media platforms.

Feed the future

Support the Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign’s joint seasonal appeal with Magic Breakfast

As Lucy Kellaway, veteran FT journalist turned teacher and FLIC trustee, found in Manchester, a FLIC lesson on the financial risks of online gaming left the class she visited rapt and armed with valuable learning. “I can’t think of many 50-minute lessons I’ve given in an entire teaching career with such a cut-and-dried result,” she concluded.

FLIC is keen to see everyday finance taught routinely across the world and made a submission to the UK government’s recent England curriculum review to that effect. As the charity expands its work to adults, including the armed forces and NHS, it will also expand its focus beyond the UK. This year will see FLIC develop a joint programme with Pratham, the India-focused education charity, to roll out a financial literacy initiative there. 

As part of this year’s seasonal appeal we were delighted to secure endorsements for the appeal — and the work of FLIC — from key figures in the UK’s national and local government. In a video interview London mayor Sadiq Khan spoke passionately about the stigma of food poverty while education secretary Bridget Phillipson highlighted in an opinion article the government’s pledge to roll out breakfast clubs to all primary schools. As FLIC and Magic Breakfast pursue their missions to improve lives nutritionally and financially, we hope to secure your endorsement, too. Thank you.

[email protected]