From the classroom to the workforce: How financial literacy training is empowering lives in Indonesia

In January of 2013, Good Return’s Financial Literacy Specialist joined forces with our Indonesia Program Coordinator to carry out an eight day train the trainer program at CUKK – our microfinance institution partner in West Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Trainees consisted of 16 CUKK staff members and 18 borrowers, all of whom were there not only to better understand the processes involved in microfinance, but to learn the skills that will enable them to pass on our financial literacy training to others within their community.

The initial day of training focused mainly on encouraging participants to write about their hopes and fears, to help create a comfortable classroom environment and to help guide the Good Return team on their participants’ wants and needs.

By the fourth day of training, participants had been provided with a wide range of training material focused on topics from financial literacy to adult perspectives and characteristics, concepts of adult education, basic skills of facilitation, questioning and listening techniques, and observation abilities.

Group discussions were encouraged during training, not only as a means of helping participants in their understanding of the technical aspects of financial literacy, but also to improve their self-confidence to become future financial literacy trainers. During the final three days of training participants were also able to practice their newly developed training techniques in class through the enactment of real-life scenarios.

This training program at CUKK in Indonesia was just one of many programs which have been, and continue to be, run by Good Return each year to educate our borrowers on how to utilise and manage their loans in the most productive ways possible, and ultimately, to improve the living standards of those who need it most through financial empowerment.