Developing participative processes for the generation of a financial education curriculum addressed to young adults at risk Erasmus Project

Project Title

Developing participative processes for the generation of a financial education curriculum addressed to young adults at risk

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Economic and financial affairs (incl. funding issues); Key Competences (incl. mathematics and literacy) – basic skills

Project Summary

Financial markets have become increasingly complex and, therefore, a comprehensive financial education process is needed to make informed decisions about all aspects that involve personal finances.
However, financial education is especially low in young adults at social risk. Research shows that this group must make economic decisions and deal with financial products without having the basic knowledge. At the same time, the inclusion of the voices of young adults is not considered in the elaboration of curricula on financial education, which is essential to give a real answer to their needs and that would allow them to be more active, independent and entrepreneurs. From this context arises the need to develop the EDUFIN project.
The main objective of the EDUFIN project was the development of a financial education curriculum that can be adapted to the needs of institutions that work with young adults at-risk.
The principal project activities were:
– Develop a Comparative Study on financial education programs in the partnership countries.
– Elaboration of the Synthesis Report of the comparative study addressed to young adults.
– Develop a participatory process involving young adults at risk.
– Systematize the results of the participatory process in a Methodology that can be implemented in other organizations that work with young adults to create educational curricula.
– Develop a Financial Literacy Curriculum that, based on the needs and expectations of at-risk youth, identifies curricular areas and topics that young people need and want to learn.
– Organize a transnational seminar and national seminars to disseminate the results of the project: O2 Methodology and O3 Curriculum.
The EDU-FIN consortium consists of seven organizations with extensive knowledge and experience in the field of lifelong learning. The partners have previously worked together on European projects, establishing a common way of work, which supported the consistency of the project and guaranteed the achievement of the proposed objectives.
The consortium includes geographically well distributed and with diverse typology organizations: Ágora Association (Spain), Amalipe Center (Bulgaria) are community base organizations. Centro Studi Vila Montesca (Italy), University of Warwick (UK), and Danube University (Austria) are institutions of higher education with a long tradition working in continuing education. European Association for the Education of Adults EAEA (Belgium), and FACEPA (Spain) are federations of adult education associations with European dimension
Collect, analyse and discuss information on the state of financial education both at European and participating countries level permitted to create the Comparative Study and the Synthesis Report. Subsequently, national events were held to involve young people in the different national teams. These work teams formed in Austria, Bulgaria, Spain and Italy held seven sessions within the framework of the participatory process were the participants, through an egalitarian dialogue, were able to reflect and discuss the contents of financial literacy that they need for everyday life and to improve their expectations for the future. With their contributions it was possible to develop the Methodology on how to make participatory processes and also to create the Financial Literacy Curriculum.
Throughout the project, internal and external evaluations were conducted to ensure the quality of the outputs.
The Comparative Study is available in English and Spanish. The Synthesis Report, Methodology, and Curriculum are available to be downloaded on all partner’s languages.
The impact of the project includes the multiplier event held during the annual EAEA meeting in Brussels, attended by more than 70 representatives of adult education institutions. At the same time, at the local level, entities belonging to Facepa have decided in Assembly to apply this curriculum in all its entities. Partners that work directly with participants are creating networks for developing the curriculum in their organizations and within their local.
Being part of a project at European level has had an impact on a personal level of more than 80 young people who participated on the process by opening the door to a topic that they felt excluded. From the voices of the participants we can highlight the intention of the young Roma participants of Amalipe Center to look for entrepreneurship courses to create their own sources of income, as well as the general interest of participants to improve their personal finances to live more independently.
In the long term, the EDUFIN project consortium hopes that this curriculum will be applied across Europe and to continue to add the ideas and needs of the young adults at risk, and offering support to other institutions that decide to implement participatory process to create their educational curriculums.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 237418 Eur

Project Coordinator

ASOCIACION DE PERSONAS PARTICIPANTES AGORA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• TSENTAR ZA MEZHDUETNICHESKI DIALOG I TOLERANTNOST AMALIPE
• Federació d’Associacions Culturals i Educatives de Persones Adultes
• THE UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
• UNIVERSITAT FUR WEITERBILDUNG KREMS
• FONDAZIONE HALLGARTEN-FRANCHETTI CENTRO STUDI VILLA MONTESCA
• EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE EDUCATION OF ADULTS