|
The concept of Financial Literacy, evolved by SEWA Bank for its members, is essentially spreading the knowledge of good money management practices. It encompasses all monetary transactions that a person enters into such as earning, spending, saving, borrowing and investing. These transactions cannot be avoided and they are an integral part of a person's life, and hence the introduction of financial literacy will help people, especially women to manage these transactions to their advantage.
ISMW - The Indian School of Microfinance for Women, an organization based in Ahmedabad, and Promoted by SEWA Bank, FWWB (I), and Coady International Institute, Canada, is a unique initiative in the discipline of Microfinance. Launched on 4th October 2003, The School's aim is to strengthen and spread Microfinance as a strategy for poverty alleviation through development of knowledge and skilled human resources. It believes that microfinance is an effective tool for the alleviation of poverty and betterment of the lives of women. It looks to bring the realities of the lives of women to organisations and people working with microfinance to help them reach the women better in turn. The Citi Centre for Financial Literacy (CCFL) was launched on September 10 th , 2005 as a department of ISMW exclusively dedicated towards spreading and managing the activities of Financial Literacy. Realising the needs and importance of Financial Literacy, the Citi Centre for Financial Literacy (CCFL), plans to work on a larger scale, undertaking action research with respect to varying needs of different segments of the population in different areas. Subsequently, it plans to move on to developing training program modules and manuals and finally conduct trainings in various parts of the sub-continent. Based on the objectives, CCFL, aims to take up financial literacy as a National Financial Literacy Drive and further to that a Movement amongst the poor. The objective of the National Financial Literacy Drive (NFLD) is to generate awareness and spread knowledge on financial literacy amongst 1.5 million poor women in ten states all over India , through different Microfinance Organizations across different States. The ten States which would be covered through this Drive are, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar , Chattisgarh and Orrisa.
|
Financial literacy can broadly be defined as "providing familiarity with and understanding of financial market products, especially rewards and risks, in order to make informal choices. Viewed from this stand point, financial education primarily relates to personal finance to enable individuals to take effective action to improve overall well being and avoid dishes in matter that are financial".
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has defined financial education as "the process by which financial consumers/investors improve their understanding of financial products, concepts and risks, and through information, instructions and/or objective advise, develop the skills and confidence to become more aware of financial risks and opportunities, to make spread choices, to know where to go for help, and to take other effective actions to improve their financial well being.
Thus financial literacy is the ability to know, monitor and effectively use financial resources to enhance the well being and economic security of oneself, one's family and business, and also for improving the understanding of the financial service providers. In our case, our focus of financial literacy will be SHG members and
their families and all other organizations who are involved with with them. This includes Bankers, Panchayat members as well.
