Aflatoun: Micro savings, macro gains

Six-year-old Keegan gets one dirham every time he loses a milk tooth. His father places the coin under his pillow with a note: "Put the coin in the treasure box and watch it grow".

Keegan is happy losing his milk teeth and collecting the coins. But when queried on what he planned to do with the money, he said, "I will buy lots of toys."

Like Keegan, there are many other children all over the world who treat themselves to gifts after receiving cash from their parents. Only a handful of them give it back to see it grow – literally – in a bank.

Now, a new education programme called Aflatoun (based on a Bollywood character) can come to the rescue of budgeting parents.

Education system

Designed to educate children aged six to 14 on various aspects of savings, Aflatoun can be incorporated in any education system anywhere in the world with the help of five core modules – personal exploration, rights and responsibilities, spending and saving, planning and budgeting, and micro and social enterprise.

"Some parents don't have great skills when it comes to managing their money and other resources, limiting their capabilities to make empowered choices," said Sara De Paz-Castro, Advocacy Coordinator of the Amsterdam-based Aflatoun Child Savings International, in an e-mail interview with XPRESS.

"The power of the Aflatoun programme is that by teaching children, the parents start to save and modify their behaviour too, a process which Alan Court, Programme Director for Unicef, has termed ‘trickle up'," she said.

Aflatoun introduces the concept of saving through children by creating a ‘Box' at the age of six in which they start putting ‘things' that are precious to them.

The programme's aim is to focus on future development of children in developing nations, especially in the rural areas. However, the need for a savings programme for children is not confined to developing countries alone. The campaign is relevant in developed countries too since children are vulnerable of falling into debt-traps due to access to internet and mobile phones.

Specific modules

"In developed nations there are many young people who do not have the skills to understand and manage the debt they take on," said Sara, adding that specific modules can be prepared to incorporate the Aflatoun programme in school curriculums.

"Aflatoun's vision is to socially and economically empower a million children to be agents of change for themselves and their communities by 2010, and to bring about change in systems to support this.

"A key element here is in encouraging children to follow the Aflatoun motto: ‘Separate fiction from fact: explore, think, investigate and act'," said Sara.

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