Financial Literacy for Investment, Growth, Help and Teamwork

The #FLIGHT aimed to improve the digital financial literacy (DFL) skills of Ukrainian female refugees and contribute to their better socio-economic inclusion in host communities, greater financial independence, and enhanced personal growth and resilience. Additionally, the project aimed to promote sustainable saving and investment practices in the digital age. The focus on women stemmed from the understanding that the war in Ukraine had made it even more crucial for women to manage their finances effectively, including income, savings, insurance, investments, and other economic activities. Participating in the #FLIGHT Help Clubs, Ukrainian women gained the knowledge to make informed decisions regarding fintech products and services, avoid financial pitfalls such as mis-selling, fraud, and data breaches, and navigate potential challenges like discriminatory treatment. The project's second objective focused on equipping Ukrainian war female refugees with better opportunities for smoother socio-economic integration into host communities. This was achieved by providing linguistic support in the form of networking and piloting sessions conducted in local official languages.

Socioeconomic empowerment of Ukrainian war refugees became the main objective of the project since the war outbreak in Ukraine. Economic conditions, insufficient local wages, or unemployment forced to go many of Eastern European women abroad as so-called economic migrants before the major geopolitical turmoil started. The war changed this paradigm and previously marginalized, invisible and to various degrees exploited women found themselves in the centre of attention. The project helped Ukrainian females to adapt to the socio-economic conditions of receiving countries proving them with a higher level of digital financial literacy, DFL. War refugees had a chance to develop sustainable DFL patterns, contributing to their financial independence and self-employment practices. Digitally and financially literate women found themselves more confident, resilient, safe on the internet. Some of them were better paid for their digital competencies they upskilled in the Help Club, a female platform for practicing DFL skills. The club provided participant women with educational, emotional, linguistic, and cultural support that made their integration into local communities smoother.

The project resulted in 5 main development acitivities: • Curriculum-training scheme Digital financial literacy for personal needs and/or self-employment ( R1), • Curriculum-training scheme Investment and online Personal Risk Tolerance Test (R2), • Curriculum-training scheme Digital identity safety and romance fraud simulation tool (R3), • Methodology and its guidelines for Help Club (R4) that was initially planned only for curricula pilot testing but turned out to be a valuable resource for networking, resilience and integration of Ukrainian war refugees, • Methodological recommendations in the form of a Guide (R5) on financial literacy discourses based on the experience of national Help Clubs. Also, a project website and several microlearning tools were developed along with numerous posts on social media and increased non-formal cooperation among social partners providing the help to Ukrainian war refugees.

The project helped the target group, Ukrainian war refugees 1) deepen their knowledge in digital and financial literacy, including but not limited to personal finance, taxation, investment, etc. in every partnering country and EU in general, 2) raise their awareness in digital financial risks and their control, getting better skilled to manage them properly, 3) increased their knowledge of consumer rights and self-employment practices; 4) provided peer-to-peer support, sharing and caring in Help clubs, the informal networks that became very important places for networking, cooperation, and inclusion into local communities. Clubs also provided linguistic and cultural support during the piloting sessions that were conducted in local official languages.