Crypto Currency and Block Chain Technology have been expanding continuously in the past few years, and all young professionals find themselves in front of new technologies, wondering about their use. At the same time, financial literacy has become ever more necessary and keeps developing to further the inclusion of aspiring children and youth into the growing job market.  

Through the joint collaboration between ORCA and Aflatoun, we developed a crypto currency and blockchain curriculum, that will allow young people to make informed decisions, knowing the risks and acquiring knowledge on the different aspects of this new tool.  Our local partners, CED in Vietnam and Stepping Stones International in Botswana, have started piloting the curriculum with students and this has served as an innovative step to test our curriculum across schools in our Asia and Anglophone Africa regions.  

The implementation took place over the past months, characterized by a series of training sessions for facilitators and school/university students in Vietnam and Botswana. In these sessions, participants were acquainted with terms like crypto currency, decentralized finance, NFT and block chain technology. The aim was to erase notions of misinformation, confusion and empower users by reinforcing their knowledge of these online technology tools, by assessing the risks and benefits.   

As a result, the piloting proved to be a fruitful experience for students and facilitators to educate children and youth on these topics and help them develop critical thinking and financial literacy skills.  

The Outreach in Vietnam  

“The sessions were interactive, engaging and fun. We used games, quizzes, videos, case studies and discussions to make the learning process enjoyable and memorable. We also encouraged the participants to ask questions, share their opinions and challenge their assumptions. We were impressed by the curiosity, enthusiasm and openness of the participants. They showed a lot of interest in learning more about these topics and exploring their potential” – facilitator from Hanoi, Vietnam 

So far, they have reached 1,845 students from four secondary and high schools and universities in Hanoi and the feedback we have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive. The students have shown great interest and enthusiasm in learning more about cryptocurrency and block chain technology. All in all, the three months of implementation were comprised of 14 sessions of workshops, conducted by a total of 19 trainers.    

For more information on the successes and experiences of the project, please visit this link.  

The Outreach in Botswana 

At the same time, the dissemination of the curriculum reached 1,739 beneficiaries across Letlhakane, Serowe, Bobirwa, Kgatleng and Good hope, Botswana. During these months, the team of 12 trainers in the 5 sites carried out 8-10 sessions  

Thanks to the implementation of training sessions by local facilitators of Stepping Stones International, children and youth are slowly experiencing the transformation of education in their school curriculum by welcoming novel channels of e-learning. Simultaneously, this is enabling youth resilience in a growing digitalised society, equipping them with digital and financial literacy tools so that they can become key agents of change in their own communities.  

This is just the beginning of an inspiring, as well as interactive project and Aflatoun alongside ORCA, cannot wait to receive more insights on how the curriculum develops and grows, taking into account the experience of facilitators and students across regions.