Acquiring life, financial, and entrepreneurial skills can be transformative for adolescent girls and boys. This is especially important for the most vulnerable young people who need to be able to fulfill their financial goals without financial support from their families. In order to empower young boys and girls, we launched Life Skills and Financial Education Through A Gender Lens (Aflateen+) project. As part of the project, last week we conducted training for trainers from the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in Togo.
Our Aflateen + Curriculum will be used in 7 schools in Togo. The project aims to empower 2000 young girls and boys within three years. In the first year, we aim to reach over 1000 young people, 54% of whom are girls.
The training in Togo was conducted by our partner FESEN in collaboration with the Directorate of General Secondary Education (DESG). Those newly trained persons will be responsible to train teachers in the 7 implementing schools from the regions of Savanes and Maritime, for the first year of the project implementation.
Both, representatives of the education ministry and the teachers, noted how young Togolese can benefit from learning financial and life skills. They see the training on Aflateen+ as an opportunity for the secondary education system.
“One of the problems we have in our school is that most of the students have skills linked to personal understanding and exploration, making choices, rights and responsibilities, as well as basic knowledge on economics, but they miss knowledge’s on financial skills, such as planning, budgeting, and managing money. They face challenges and are unable to fulfill their financial goals as parents are not able to support them financially. With this training they will be able to self-manage their own finance, by creating small enterprises to achieve their goals,” says Inspector Radji Rafiou from the inspectorate of Secondary Education.
“I’m really glad to have the financial education training component because most of our students at secondary technical school in Togo do not know what to do after receiving their diploma. They do not have entrepreneurship skills to create their own business. With this training, I believe, students will gain entrepreneurship skills that should be a great benefit for the government of Togo,” says Madam Anson Sitsofe, a teacher in a secondary technical school in Togo.
Aflateen+ not only equips adolescent boys and girls with financial skills but also centers on life skills which are very important at that stage of growth.
“Besides financial education, the content around personal understanding and exploration, as well as the rights and responsibilities of young people will complement the packages of modules we already have. This will help to resolve several issues we face in secondary schools, like for example, conflicts between students and teachers,” adds Inspector Rafiou.
Life Skills and Financial Education Through A Gender Lens (Aflateen+) project is funded by Dubai Cares and being implemented in Mali, Niger, and Togo through local partners of Aflatoun International and through the mobilisation and accompaniment of the local education authorities.
