Description
The Science for Environment Foundation will pioneer the first Polish edition of Aflatoun, a global social and financial education programme for youth aged 12-18. We believe the programme will help young people in Poland use their potential and become agents of local change. The programme is designed so as to create space for reflection and teach exploring the developments and problems in the community. Young people are expected to develop life skills which will help them become pro-active citizens able to manage social micro-projects. The pilot implementation of the educational resource obtained from the MasterCard Foundation and Aflatoun will require an adaptation of 300 pages of educational material and training the initial group of 128 facilitators who will start 64 Aflatoun clubs to provide classes for a total of 1,280 young people aged 12-18
Summary of project results
"Research conducted by the Youth Study Centre of the University of Warsaw in 2012 indicates that only 2 per cent of young people admit being regularly engaged in some kind of community organisation (sports, culture, youth, local). This demonstrates how few young people interact with organisations and institutions that teach democracy, self-rule, collaboration and helping others. Similarly, the Youth 2011 report by the Office of the Prime Minister confirms that youth in Poland do not want to engage in their local communities but prefer just adapting to the local reality. Meanwhile, only 9 per cent of all provision focuses on community involvement [Youth Study Centre of the University of Warsaw 2010]. Most activities are ad-hoc projects rather than concerted and cohesive education programmes. The project aimed at increasing the community involvement of young people by offering participation in initiatives for the benefit of their local communities. Young people learned to identify local needs and suggest relevant response that involves their peers, including socially vulnerable youth. Nearly 1,000 project participants set out to form small informal youth groups to design and develop initiatives for their own local communities. A social and financial skill education programme was developed for various age groups of children and youth. The programme is available in paper and electronic version and contains ready-to-use youth group facilitation resources. Project beneficiaries included high school students in 48 communities. The Institute for Financial Literacy develops and publishes education materials for youth about financial education community project development. In this project, it helped to adapt the international education packages to the realities of informal education in Poland."
Summary of bilateral results
The Aflatoun in Poland project focused on an evaluation methodology and included a three-day study visit for three individuals; the participants attended a workshop facilitated by evaluation professional Breki Karlsson, a graduate of Economics and International Business, Copenhagen Business School and a B.Sc in Business Administration, University of Reykjavik. He managed a research project studying the level of finacial awareness in Iceland and in the EU. The project helped the Foundation get access to the latest developments in the global Aflatoun network and collect Polish data in a simple and effective fashion and use the IT solution ideas from Iceland to develop a community of Aflatoun facilitators.