Financial literacy:

New Pathways of Learning

Indian School for Microfinance for Women conducted a training programme on "Financial literacy" in Ahmedabad from 10-14 December 2007. This training was organised under the banner of Network of National Resource Organization (G5) for its partners with the support from the Ford Foundation .

The School is spreading the message of Financial Literacy across the country with broad range of partners . The School believes that financial literacy is an important skill to cope with the uncertainties of present and future by planning and executing it though change in financial behavior. The idea is to cater to the need of effective management of personal finance and to build the skills of poor people in this regard particularly women by promoting good financial concepts which will help them to build their asset for a secured future.

A total of nineteen participants from five organizations across the country participated in the training. The organizations participated are APMAS from Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Chaitanya from Rajgurunagar (Maharastra), Center for Microfinance (CMF), Jaipur (Rajasthan) and Reach India from kolkata ( West Bengal ). The five days programme was to discuss and understand the concept of financial literacy and its importance for the people with whom the microfinance organizations work, methodology, tools and techniques in details that are/could be used to train the community to develop their skills to manage their finances better.

The Chair of Center for Financial Literacy, Ms. Jayshree Vyas (who is also the Managing Trustee of The School), conducted the training along with three other trainers from the School.

The training started with a small exercise, asking the participants, "To think of a financial goal" . Surprisingly, most of the participants did this for the first time. Ms. Vyas said " if we are doing it for first time then think about the poor people with whom we are working". The exercise itself enforced everyone to start thinking seriously about future financial plan from the very beginning.

The four days of classroom sessions covered the topics on Financial planning, Smart Savings, Matured Borrowings, Wise Spending, Investments and Budgeting. The methodologies used were presentations, games, screening of movies on different components of financial literacy, question-answer, dialogues, exchange of views and ideas, group discussions and group exercises. The discussions became interactive with debate on contextual issues, on tools and methodologies used adaptations in regional context and facilitation skills, which charged up the training atmosphere.

An exposure visit to SEWA bank (where financial literacy originated) was organized on the fourth day to understand the history of financial literacy and it's functioning in a historical institution like SEWA Bank. This visit also gave the participants an opportunity to interact with women members, which turned out to be like a learning lab where the participants first interacted with a group of women who have not taken financial literacy to understand their financial behaviour and response to many concepts and the other group, which had taken the financial literacy training. The participants interacted with these women to know how financial literacy has helped them, its effect on their socio-economic status in family, in community and on their daily lives and their understanding of the various concepts of financial literacy etc. This was a great learning experience for the participants, which gave them an opportunity to relate class room sessions in the field and to see the client's acceptance and the importance of financial literacy for their well being.

After the training one participant said "I will apply it to my personal life and then will try delivering in the field" .

The suggestions by many of the participants were relating to customization, methodologies and language used. Majority were of the view that "It gave a better insight on financial literacy. Now we can directly use it in the field with some customization".