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AFFLUENT SOCIETY

Starting with the piggy bank brigade

Namita Devidayal looks at a unique campaign that seeks to promote financial education in young children Last month, an international campaign to promote financial literacy was launched at a conference in Amsterdam. Yet another boring programme on money? Not quite. This one was different because it targeted children. The program is called ‘Aflatoun’, or explorer, a word derived from Arabic and later taken up in Bollywood. Aflatoun, is an energetic fireball from outer space who comes to earth to interact with children and teach them about the basics of saving, spending, planning, budgeting and enterprise.

But first, let’s flash back to 2001, to a small government-run school in a tribal village called Varale, in rural Thane.

Most of the children were first-generation learners. No villager had ever been to Mumbai. If any one left, it was to leave for good. But then the ‘aflatoun’ fireball was introduced to them. Pretty soon, the children started making other plans. They wanted to go see the Gateway of India! So, they started collecting money—a rupee here, a few coins there, given by a visiting relative or as pocket money after the harvest. “Maximum would be two rupees,” says Sumitra Ashtikar, executive director of Mel-Jol, the NGO which initiated this programme. When they had enough, they hired a bus, bought a bunch of bananas, and had themselves photographed at the Gateway. The children had experienced their first excitement of saving and creating a fund—which would translate into excursions, to enter a drawing competition, or towards future studies.

Over the following two years, all the 600 schools in Thane district totally collected more than Rs 5 lakh. The children do all the collecting, saving and record-keeping and keep their own passbooks. So the programme not only teaches children to save, but also to plan for the future, says Ashtikar, adding, “Creating child rights awareness without the financial education component is pointless.”

Ironically, it was here that the programme took seed, before taking off for the so-called developed world. The success of the programme inspired its founder Jeroo Billimoria to take it to other countries. Today, Aflatoun’s Child Savings International programme has been successfully launched in 11 countries, including Zimbabwe, Vietnam and South Africa. It will soon hit rich countries as well, such as Britain, the Netherlands, and perhaps the US. For it is becoming increasingly clear that developed countries are equally in need of financial education (look at the sub-prime rate crisis in the US, for example).

The programme addresses children between the ages of six and 14 years. Of course, many adaptations are made, the same programme cannot be replicated, but the concept is the same—social and financial education for children, to make them economically self-reliant future citizens whose sense of social and financial responsibility propels them to work towards creating a more equitable society in the future. (For more information, look up www .aflatoun .org).

According to a recent article in The Economist, the US government earlier this year set up a committee on financial education which, among other things, will also target youngsters. April has been declared ‘financial literacy month’. One of the members is the co-author of the self-help bestseller Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which helped many get over their money blocks, and also heads Junior Achievement, which teaches children about money. The committee has already approved a new curriculum for middle school students, called ‘Money Math: Lessons for Life’ (Lesson one teaches that the secret to becoming a millionaire is: save, save, save!)

Today schools all over the world are recognizing the need to include a course in personal finance and basic money concepts as part of the curriculum. A good

way to get children to start saving is by opening bank accounts for them. Even tiny amounts count. The idea is more to get them to handle money responsibly. After all, as the scriptures remind us, it’s the little drops of water that make the mighty oceans. TNN

COUNTING BENEFITS

Aflatoun’s five core elements of a child’s social and financial education

1. Personal understanding and exploration:

Children investigate their own personal values. Financial ethics are explored and children learn the importance of balancing financial skills with the judgement to use these skills responsibly.

2. Rights and responsibilities:

Children learn about their responsibilities towards themselves, their family, the environment and their community.

3. Saving and spending:

Children learn how to save and how to spend in a responsible manner.

4. Planning and budgeting:

Financial empowerment is achieved when children use their saving and spending skills to maximize their life choices. For example, a consistent savings habit can enable a child to stay in school for longer when payment for education is required.

5. Child enterprise (social and financial):

Children are encouraged to view themselves as active participants in and shapers of their community through managing community enterprises or entrepreneurial activities.

BANKING BASICS: Bangladeshi street children deposit money at the Children’s Development Bank in Dhaka. The bank, which is a Bangladesh-based lender that is owned by NGO Aparajeyo-Bangladesh, is managed by street children

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