Duration: 01-12-2020 – 30-11-2022
Project number: 2020-2-RO01-KA205-080633
COVID-19 is painfully exposing the existing and persisting health, social and economic inequalities in our societies. This pandemic has the heaviest impact on the lives of people living in deprivation or facing difficult socio-economic circumstances. The constant threat of financial crisis has made it crucial to address the need for financial literacy educational programs. Without it, people fail to make the right decisions. Financial literacy rates vary across the European Union: in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden 65% of adults are financially literate. In Bulgaria and Cyprus, only 35% of adults, while in Romania 22%. As it affects everybody, it covers all demographics, all geographies, and all cultures, the involvement of youth workers, educators and educational leaders as the frontline staff is essential to help young people and young entrepreneurs build financial literacy – money knowledge, skills, and habits at key transitional moments. We believe that today’s youth should become empowered economic citizens, capable of understanding the importance of saving, to be equipped with the skills to be employed and create their livelihoods. We want young people to learn to manage their money wisely. By empowering youth, we can help them transfer their knowledge to their families and to entire communities. The main aim of the 8 organizations is to design during the project “Youth Finance Academy” a collection of 3 financial education tools for Youth NGOs to be used by these to equip young people and young entrepreneurs with the know-how and key-competences necessary to achieve a high-quality financial literacy throughout two years. The specific objectives of the project are:
SO1: To create a cross-sectoral network of financial experts (from the public, private and not-for-profit sector) who can actively contribute with their know-how to the development of Youth Finance Academy training package, educational game and multimedia content (podcasts, micro-learning videos, articles) and promote the necessity of integrating financial education in high-schools, universities, and Youth NGOs through 6 national seminars and 1 Youth Financial Education Forum.
SO2: To train 24 youth workers to become financial educators in 8 local communities through 1 short-term staff training event where they deepen their know-how on financial literacy, test, and learn how to facilitate the Youth Finance Academy training modules, and the educational game.
SO3: To design high-quality financial education learning environment that can improve the financial literacy of 238 young people and 181 young entrepreneurs involved in 2 blended mobilities and 16 local workshops. 28 young people and 21 young entrepreneurs will directly participate in 2 international blended mobility activities during the project to improve their financial literacy through non-formal activities and multimedia, digital learning resources. Another 330 will benefit from local workshops, test the training toolbox, and the educational game, to be designed during the project. During the project, Monomyths Association and its partners (Civitas Foundation for Civil Society – Cluj-Napoca Branch, Nuorisokeskus Piispala Youth Centre, Sdruzhenie Walk Together, Terram Pacis, InterCollege APS, Asociacija Tavo Europa and Entrepreneurship and Social Economy Group Greece) will design 3 high-quality tools: a collection of mindmaps with key-insights about financial education in 7 European countries (Romania, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Greece, and Bulgaria) discovered through a two-phases; a training toolbox with NFE activity cards for young people and youth entrepreneurs and an educational game based on financial decisions. The Youth Finance Academy redesigns the way financial education is delivered to youth and young entrepreneurs integrating game-based learning, gamification, and non-formal methods in an empowering, fun, and tech-savvy way (QR codes and micro-learning videos/podcasts hosted on Monomyths Learning platform). These tools will improve the learning experiences and influence young people to keep learning more, scan the QR codes that will be embedded in the training package cards and educational game.
