Young Financial Influencers - Positive influence on the financial literacy and entrepreneurial potential of young people.

"<< Background >>Financial literacy is recognized as fundamental skill of high relevance, especially for young people. Young people are specific age group, who are relatively inexperienced in using financial products and may only recently have started handling financial transactions. The transition from youth to adulthood is financially demanding.Young people are very likely to face important financial decisions in the near future that are different from those faced by older adults, such as deciding how to fund additional education or identifying work opportunities. Low understanding on topics such as personal saving, investments, bank issues, housing loans and mortgages, income tax, insurance needs, etc., may have a negative impact on financial behaviours and attitudes regarding rational buying,consumer awareness, educational/professional career.In order to overcome this skill missmatch, the project aimed to design, develop and offer to the young, an online training provisions to support them to make informed and confident financial decisions as economic actors, producers, consumers, professionals, entrepreneurs, employees, considering that there is a direct positive relationship between financial literacy and the wellbeing of the individuals.<< Objectives >>The project developed training provisions (online training platform, tools, videos, podcasts content,networks),especially designed for young people, supporting them in understanding the workings of the financial context they live in,understanding the financial risks and the opportunities, making them able to take rational and informed decisions (including entrepreneurial potential), being aware where they can get help for financial products and services, being able to take effective actions to increase their well-being.The major project products are online financial literacy training platform for young people (in five EU languages), organised testing/piloting sessions for young people and trainers in 4 EU countries, established 5 national Networks of young financially intrested people,developed ""Young Financial Influencer's Guide"", elaborated podcasts and videos on financial topics and vast dissemination campaign to include wider audience in Bulgaria,Greece,Portugal and the Republic of North Macedonia.All the project activities led to creation of well-informed financial management mindset among the young, aiming at the development of a financially literate generation of economic actors to better deal within the economic context<< Implementation >>The project application objectives were achieved through several project activities described below:These activities allow the project fluent implementation, organisation of activities' implementation, tracking the quality of the results and disseminating them to wider audiance:1) Project management and implementation2) Sharing and promotion activities3) Quality assurance and evaluation4) Exploitation and sustainabilityThe following activities represented the actual project results. They consisted of various sub-activities that were implemented in order to achieve the final outputs.5) Project Result 1: Financial literacy and skills assessment framework in partner countries and Training model and material to boost financial literacy among the young (previous Project result 1 and project result 2)At submission stage the project envisaged 4 Project Results, but when it was approved, we were informed that Project result 1, which is mainly a research phase, was not funded and only 3 of the project results received funding. So we combinded the initally planned Project Result 1 and Project Result 2 in new Project Result 1, containing a Research phase and Content development phase.6) Project Result 2: Know your finances: an online training on financial literacy for the young (previous PR3)7) Project Result 3: Networks of Financial Influencers and Financial Literacy talks (previous PR34 )PR1, the research phase, carried out a comprehensive skills assessment and gap analysis of the primary target group of the project (young people aged up to 29 years - secondary school students of economic classes and specialities, NEETs and youngsters registered at the local employment offices, volunteers and young people doing internships, university students, youth / informal leaders, etc.), considering the main objective of the project - the development of financially well-informed, capable and thus responsible young people and eventually,independent citizens, through the dimension of financial literacy skill development. The research phase included the partner countries- Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal and the Republic of North Macedonia, utilising different tools (country analysis, online survey, focus groups and qualitative interviews).It also included the development of innovative Financial literacy self-assessment on-line questionnaire, providing assessment and evaluation of the knowledge of the testers, but also interpreting the financial literacy level of the tester and providing suggestions for topics of knowledge to be covered through the project training platform. After the research phase was completed, the partnership continued with the implementation of the Content phase of PR1 - development of a set of digital training modules,to be then deployed in an online learning environment. A training methodology was developed to determine the scope of the training content, the structure of the training provision as responding to desired learning outcomes.The developed methodology defined the main axes around which the material was developed, responding to four dimensions - the core content covering knowledge and skills, the efficacy, covering the improvement of financial education, skills, as well as behaviours, the dimension of utility, including the most effective self-learning and teaching aspects in pedagogical terms, and lastly the dimension of quality, accounting for accurate and well presented, integrated training provision. The Content was first elaborated in English and then localised in Bulgarian, Greek, Portuguese and Macedonian. The elaborated content was also prepared in powerpoint presentations, to be utilised by potential teachers, trainers if they wish to cover the training content in physical training as well.PR2- The training modules, as developed in PR1-Content development phase, were integrated into an online training environment, freely accessible for the target group. To this aim, an online platform was designed to host the training provision and all relevant functionalities. The training platform is functianing in 5 languages- English, Bulgarian, Macedonina, Greek and Portuguese. It also includes Video materials, available in the same stated languages. The platform was tested/piloted among more than 180 testers/ users and after the provided feedback, it was fine-tuned in technical and user-friendly aspects. As part of the Training platform, there were elaborated 7 videos in English and partnership language subtitles, presenting financial topics in simple and interesting way. The videos are incorporated in the platfrom, but they are also available as free resource in the Project Result section of the project website.PR3- development of Guide “The Young Financial Influencer’s Guide” which lays the foundation of how to build networks of financial influencers and “training” young people through organising literacy talks and mini coaching sessions, so that they could raise awareness of the need for financial literacy among other young people under a specific methodology.The Guide is also available in English, Bulgarian, Macedonina, Greek and Portuguese, making it possible to replicate the methodology and use it by various organisations, working in the field of youth support. Five National Networks of young financial influencers were established which organised local Financial Literacy Talks (i.e. informal group meetings in the form of chat clubs) discussing different topics, part of personal financial literacy and beyond.Multiplier Events:- Organised Multiplier events in Bulgaria (2 events), Greece (1 event), Portugal (2 events) and the Republic of North Macedonia (2 events), to promote the results of project outputs and deliverables to target audiences and to raise awareness on the issues addressed through the project, including 170 participants, representatives of both target groups of the project- young people or trainers/teachers.In the frame of Sharing and Promotionm, the partnership developed:- project website- Project FB and Instagram account- 20 Financial Literacy podcasts with voiceover in BG, EL, PT, MK- project logo- project poster, leaflet, banner- 8 Press-releases- 3 Newsletters<< Results >>The project managed to produce the following results:PR1: A comprehensive financial literacy skills assessment framework based on data gathered through different research tools (country analysis, online survey, focus groups, qualitative interviews), presented in Comparative report, available in English with short summaries in all project languages. The comparative report and its summury in BG, EL, MK and PT, are freely available on the project website, Results Section.Development of Financial literacy self-assessment online tool in Engish, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues, which is a simple online-based questionnaire, assessing, evaluating and interpreting the financial literacy of a young person (the tester), as well as suggesting skills, necessary to be built to overcome the identified deficiencies. The Financial literacy tool is linked with the content of the project Online Training Platform to point the young person the topics that he/she can take to improve his/her financial literacy and personal finance management skills. Based on the Comparative report, produced during the research phase of PR1, there was created a training content, intended for young people to improve their skills, knowledge and best practices towards taking well-informed and sound financial decisions. Following the development of the training methodology and content, partners undertook a training session to train trainers in piloting the methodology and content in Athens, Greece. Following this, two rounds of piloting sessions were held in Bulgaria, Greece, Portugal and North Macedonia. Based on all the gathered feedback, the final training material was fine-tuned, which then underwent adaptations/translations to national context, so that it is available in Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues.PR2: Know your finances: online training on financial literacy and personal finance management, available in English, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues. Based on the elaborated content in the previous PR, the online training paltform was created. The Platform is a learning ecosystem that is linked to a digital branded credential system, using open-source software. The training platform is open for the users (not requiring e-mail and user's credential) and there is no registration system. In order to keep, the opportunity of receiving a certificate, there is the feature of submitting a request ""request for the completion certificate"" and guidelines appear to the user encouraging him/her to send an email to finfluencers@gmail, in order to generate the Certificate. For this, the user shall provide names, email. After receiving email the partners will share the respondibility to elaborate and send Certificate through the 5 years period of maintaining the platform. Following the completion of the project, the Platform will remain available for a period of 5 years and the technical partner in the partnership (RNDO, Cyprus) will take care of its maintenance. In the framework of this project result a series of 7 videos was elaborated, with English voice over and Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues subtitles. These complementary training videos (short clips) are embedded on the training platform. These videos are both in the format of existing freely available sources and/or short, custom made presentation videos on specific topics regarding financial literacy, following the modules topics.They could be used either as part of the training platform or seperately, as video content on financial literacy topics.PR3: Networks of Financial Influencers and Financial Literacy talks - elaboration of a Guide “The Young Financial Influencer’s Guide” in English, Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues, which lays the foundation of how to build networks of young financial influencers and how to enggage young people in the topic of financial literacy. Five young people from the project countries were trained how to use the Guide and how to establish these national Networks of financially enggaed young people. There were established 5 networks- two in Bulgaria (operated by the two Bulgarian partners), one in Greece, one in Portugal and one in the Republic of North Macedonia. Each Network consists of 5 young people and managed to organise 3 meetings, marketed as Talks on financial literacy to share and bounce ideas, sharing experiences, reflecting, mentoring activities and other innovative methods and interventions in the field of financial literacy.Multiplier Events:- Organised Multiplier events in Bulgaria (2 events), Greece (1 event), Portugal (2 events) and the Republic of North Macedonia (2 events), to promote the results of project outputs and deliverables to target audiences and to raise awareness on the issues addressed through the project, including 170 participants, representatives of both target groups of the project- young people or trainers/teachers.Sharing and promotion:- elaborated project Visibility toolkit - unique project logo, visual identity and document templates- printed promotional materials - project leaflet, poster and roll banner- Project website in 5 languages- Social media pages, including Facebook and Instagram - A series of 20 online podcasts, providing information, data and discussion related to financial literacy topics,managing personal finances, available in Bulgarian, Greek, Macedonian and Portugues- Newsletters- 3 issues- 8 Press-releasesManagement:- Project management guide- Partnership Agreements- Quality and Evaluation plan- Exploitation and Sustainability Plan- IPR Agreements- Organised 6 online meetings- organised 4 6-months internal reports"