FLY-IN: Addressing Financial Literacy needs of Young NEET women towards their financial INclusion

Background Nowadays, there is a growing need to educate young women in finance and increase their financial independence and economic success. Basic financial literacy is an important building block towards achieving economic empowerment. Before starting a business, becoming employed, or just navigating personal finance, young women should know how to make a budget, develop a savings plan, and apply for a local loan. Unfortunately, girls and young women have few opportunities to gain financial literacy because formal education in Europe does not include it in the school curricula (Bruegel, 2018). The problem is more apparent among young women that are marginalized, have low-income, or are neither in employment nor in education (NEET). Εvidence shows low levels of financial inclusion of migrant populations across the world due to differences in cultural and social attitudes, as well as trust and confidence in the financial system. Other barriers include limited knowledge, skills, and, in particular, low levels of financial literacy and inadequate provision of financial education to migrants, limited language proficiency, lack of experience and knowledge about the local financial system. Objectives FLY-IN project was an effort to develop an educational program to train the youth workers coming from financial institutions, youth centers, and educational organizations involved with youth, NEETs, migrants, and women empowerment to train young women with a double-disadvantage (NEET with a migrant background) to become financially literate. Therefore, we had the following objectives: *To develop an innovative training program for youth workers, to give them the tools, guidance, and proper support to train young NEET women with a migrant background in Financial Literacy. *To directly train youth workers in Financial Literacy who in turn, will train young NEET women with a migrant background, in order to enhance and further the future effect of those training. Implementation The project implementation followed the Gantt chart and implemented research activities to support the development of the Curricula of the IO1, translated in all the partner countries the 3 intellectual outputs developed, the development of the training manual, and the e-learning platform. To monitor the implementation, we had 3 transnational meetings, an online coordinating meeting, and a one-on-one meeting when was necessary. After the manual was developed we held the C1 - learning teaching activity according to the plan and also piloted the tools with youth and youth workers. For dissemination purposes, we also created a website and published there all the results. We developed as well a dissemination plan alongside a evaluation and quality control one. Achievements IO1: FLY-IN Curriculum: IO1 include - among others - pedagogic resources developed to address the following 4 core competencies, which according to the preliminary needs analysis were recognized as the weakest points related to the financial literacy levels of women: -Introduction to Budgeting (Why and how to budget) -Tracking Your Spending (A simple way to get the most from your monthly budget) -The concept of financial health (including smart decision-making) - Identity Theft Issues & Safety IO2: To support the delivery of the newly designed curriculum, the FLY-IN Trainer's Manual for youth workers was developed. IO4 - An e-learning portal was developed, in which all resources are available. It includes online tools that support the delivery of the aforementioned IOs. The e-Learning portal became an addition to the previous IOs, eTool, to assist youth workers (who completed the C1 training program) in their training of young women.