Lucknow: FinLit, a financial literacy startup in collaboration with the Uttar Pradesh government’s ‘Mission Shakti’ will hold workshops over the year in several districts of the state to educate women from the rural areas about financial management.
Under this ‘Mission Shakti’-backed initiative, 35 educators from FinLit will be deployed to tier 2 and 3 cities — such as Gorakhpur, Aligarh, Saharanpur, and others — to hold physical workshops with women aged between 25 and 35 years.
The workshops will teach them how to manage finances, and make investments in the context of insurance schemes, retirement plans, and more.
“We have identified this age group (25-35 years) based on the response we got from a previous online programme that we conducted in rural Uttar Pradesh. They are far more involved and eager to learn,” said Neha Mishra who started FinLit in 2020 after realising that she, too, was quite unaware of how to manage and invest her finances when she was young.
Now, through various programs, she endeavours to make other women more aware of how to be financially independent and understand personal finance.
She said that even though they are not aware of the financial jargon or procedures, they do know how to operate WhatsApp and use Google Meet — which helps in their learning to use online banking tools.
“We are taking a three-pronged approach to this programme — the first is to do with access to digital finance services, then there is the need for people to understand retirement as a subject and why they need to invest in retirement and pension plans, and finally the access to EMI and credit,” she explained.
She further said that very often people from rural areas misunderstand the concept of EMIs (equated monthly instalments).
Previously, Neha had also tied up with government and private organisations to conduct other awareness programs such as entrepreneurship development for students, and another focusing on insurance developments, among others.
“Finance is a very nice space, but people often get very scared of it, and that is due to a lack of understanding,” she added.
She said that once women understand personal finance, they can then begin to dabble in investments and retirement plans to financially secure their futures.
–IANJS
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