The newspapers are covered with references to need for financial education. Politicians are calling for more transparency, but also more protection for "defrauded" savers who were not able to know. It repeats itself later the surrender of the Popolare di Bari, the tragedy already experienced during the other flops of the banking system, accompanied by a barrage of accusations against the Bank of Italy and the confirmation that the mountain of papers to sign required by Mifid 2 are of little use.
In the midst of so much hustle and bustle, it is not surprising that the series of meetings organized by F went unnoticedPetruzzelli wave and The third on women who have played a role in the history of Italy, one of the events promoted in Puglia by Global Thinking Foundation, the organization created in 2016 by Claudia Segre, an organizational volcano snatched from the desks of high finance and a handful of other brains with the aim of creating and supporting financial literacy projects aimed at vulnerable individuals: women, the poor and minors in the lead. An ambitious and courageous project born on a conviction: to ensure social and economic inclusion it takes a knowledgeable culture of asset management, an essential element for a truly free society.
“In Bari – explains Claudia Segre – this year we have launched a project we think is sustainable because it is based on previous experiences and we have launched the Southern focus in which everything we do is included in a cultural project which in Bari involved 1.200 people (complete with entrance ticket). Also in Bari, as part of the Focus Sud programme, we have signed a long-term partnership with the Municipality because, in addition to the usual courses that we run throughout Italy, we have created a specific one for employees of the municipality and the Region with a view to social welfare: there is a big problem because the municipality's social security fund is frozen and for now there is no solution in sight”.
“The setting of Focus Sud also allowed us to hold the first national Education day: in the morning with 120 young people, in the afternoon with families to talk about sustainable finance. Bari was an exceptional laboratory that allowed us to work across the board”, including the icing on the cake: support for “Salento women soccer” for women's football. “It is known – he explains – that the number of teams in the South has drastically reduced. Football for girls is an opportunity to get out of social unease in an area where Conturella doesn't exist. For us it is very important to go through the values of sport to meet the girls and spread the values of sustainability".
And what is true for Puglia is about to be replicated in Sicily, Calabria and Sardinia according to a model already tested in Lazio. “We don't work with victims of physical violence but with people who still have serious problems: house debt, sureties, perhaps false signatures or the difficulty of meeting one fifth of salary. Women who don't go to the anti-violence center because the problem isn't the beatings, but they are a little ashamed and a little lost and don't know who to turn to. In these cases we offer the task force of voluntary professionals”.
Here are some examples of the Global Think Foundation's approach to financial literacy, understood as a weapon for emancipation is the inclusion of the weakest developed according to a rigorous and measurable metric. Not a simple international foundation that has various offices, but a targeted project that through financial education has as its objective the prevention of abuse and economic violence. This is why GTF supports quality education, with scholarships and prizes for deserving and less well-off students, gender equality, through financial literacy courses dedicated to women, and decent work and economic growth, thanks to projects aimed at social and economic-financial inclusion of all citizens. A project that develops through the constant stimuli of intellectuals of the caliber of Nouriel Roubini, Alan Krueger and Robert Rubenstein.
“It's not just about conferences, but about previews of what we're going to do during the season,” continues Segre. This year it was Paolo Sironi's turn to address the issue of transparency and ethics in the fintech era, a way "to put homo sapiens at the center of the economy" but also a risk for those who do not participate and end up on the sidelines victim of digital illiteracy. In the meantime, an App was launched with all the contents of our activities and the fintech observatory was launched in Asia. The horizon, in fact, is the world.
“For me – Segre continues – being international means acting as locally as possible. In Italy we work throughout the territory with our projects, such as Women squared, in other countries we work on specific targets, such as in the United States, where we face the scourge of super-indebtedness for children due to the cost of education. Or in France, where they are focused on the issue of pensions. There too we wanted to focus on a specific objective on which it is then possible to make an analysis of the impact of the operation”.
An approach that others do not apply. “In the Bank of Italy they tell you that they have been involved in financial education for twenty years, but you never see a single figure. We believe that only by measuring the impact as we do on various initiatives do you share the results internationally”. As for the glossary distributed in schools in the first year in 125 copies, then to the adults who took part in the courses, in addition to the English and Spanish translations for immigrants. In two years, "Women squared" involved 1.500 women. Not forgetting the digital platform for families and the videos of the FamilyMi family platform with subtitles for the deaf/deaf.
In short, a small large army (seven employees in Italy, two in France, offices in New York and Los Angeles) which acts both preventively and with emergency actions with one goal: to guarantee everyone a decent job, so ensuring the growth of the economy.
