Aflatoun International creates high-quality curricula on social and financial education for different age groups. Their mission is to socio-economically empower children and young people so they can act as agents of change in their own lives. They create curricula for children and young people of different age groups to learn about their rights, how to save and budget their money, and how to start small enterprises.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected over 1 billion children, putting them at risk of falling behind due to school closures. The crisis hit the most vulnerable children hardest. Aflatoun network partners were heavily impacted, the majority had to work from home or were forced to close. Organisations reported a reduction in income, cash flow problems and negative consequences on the psychosocial well-being of staff. Several organisations also reported a reduction in salaries. More than two-thirds of the Aflatoun’s regular social and financial education programmes had to reduce activities to less than 50% pre-COVID-19 levels or had to stop activities completely. To respond to requests from partners and support children’s physical and mental well-being, they adjusted the approach to tackle the new world challenges.
When the pandemic hit, Aflatoun organised a rapid assessment among their global partner network to understand how they were coping and responding during these unprecedented times. Over 100 organisations in 67 different countries responded, and three key areas were highlighted:
- Demand for life skills education
- Digital solutions were not viable for the most vulnerable students
- NGOs were creative but were unsure of their future
Based on these results, Aflatoun continued to look for practical solutions to ensure that children and youth were equipped with the 21st-century skills necessary for financial resilience; to digitalize their curricula and to support partners in their adaptation efforts.
Despite the challenges brought by COVID-19, their partners kept reaching out to the most vulnerable children and youth. They adapted their social and financial education programmes by:
- Preventing COVID-19 cases in vulnerable communities
- Distance learning – offline and online
- Mitigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic
Ready to Come Back to School: Teacher Preparedness Training Package
In response to COVID-19, Aflatoun along with UNICEF developed the Ready to Come Back: Teacher Preparedness Training Package for countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. The package aimed to help schools reopen as safely as possible and equip teachers with the skills and knowledge to facilitate a return to school that centred child and youth safety and mental health. The package was also replicated in other regions.
WASH and SEL Supplements
Aflatoun developed two new tools around Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) & Social and Emotional Learning (SEL). These new thematic supplements added to Aflatoun curricula aimed at providing children and teachers with the tools to combat some of the effects of COVID-19 and accelerate the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Aflatoun has always been aligned with the latest developments and innovations in digital/distance learning. When the COVID-19 hit, they adapted to the new educational environment and supported their partner organisations in building their digital content and resources.
Partner Platform: In 2020, the Aflatoun Partner Platform was launched that allows the Aflatoun secretariat to connect to a global network of organisations across different regions. The platform became essential during the pandemic as it evolved into a space to conduct online training for Aflatoun trainers and teachers, as well as a knowledge-sharing platform for distance-learning resources. Additionally, through this platform, the partner organisations could download the full Aflatoun curricula and access self-learning and facilitator-led courses.
Online Training Modules: The realities of digital learning challenged every educational organisation and not all were ready for a swift transition to distance learning methods. To build up the capacity of their partner organisations, Aflatoun conducted several training sessions on how to effectively facilitate online teaching.
Digital Learning Resources for Children and Youth: During the pandemic, Aflatoun released interactive digital learning materials (visuals, text, videos, illustrations, and games) for children and young people on life skills and financial literacy. The USP of this is that it is customisable to local contexts. They provided their partners with files containing characters, backgrounds, text voiceovers, as well as quizzes to assess entry and output behaviours. These resources were designed to be agnostic, and the partners packaged them for use on different mobile and web apps, with and without the internet.
In March 2021, Aflatoun and its partners organised a series of calls with children and young people from more than 40 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. The youth openly spoke about how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their lives and shared their coping mechanisms. Read more about these conversations here.
Aflatoun and its partners aim to intensify their efforts to provide children and young people with the knowledge and skills to build resiliency, improve their lives, and help them prepare for a hopeful future now!
