A ninth grader has taken up the cause of educating her peers about financial literacy with a website and podcast.

Kriti Sarav created “WhyFI Matter$,” which the website describes as “A Global Platform for Teen Literacy,” in April. In addition to the website, Kriti started making podcasts, under the same name, to go along with the content that she publishes online.

The website is broken down into four main sections: Listen, Watch, Read and Voice$. In each of these sections, Kriti provides her audience with enticing videos, interviews with teens around the world, and articles. 

Kriti’s objective when developing “WhyFI Matters” was to make financial literacy available and accessible to teens. 

“There’s like a lot of content out there, but they’re all, like, really long articles that are really boring, and they’re made by people who teens can’t relate to like older people,” Kriti said. “And so, podcasting is, like, super-accessible to teens — like, you can do it as, like, when you’re getting dressed in the morning or when you’re driving to school.” 

When she took it upon herself to help teens her own age and young adults across the world learn to become financially independent, she was disappointed to learn U-High was not making the same efforts.

“I found it really puzzling that we don’t have this knowledge, because you would think a country like America, which is pretty high up in education, you’d think that we would have this knowledge,” Kriti said. 

Even though her continuously growing online network makes her out to be a finance buff, Kriti wasn’t always interested in the topic.

Kriti said, “Through WhyFI Matter$, I’m making [finances] as fun and accessible as possible to teens and young adults. “