Financial Literacy International, Inc
Financial Literacy International, Inc. (“FLI”) is a nonprofit organization which seeks to eradicate chronic poverty and introduce education to the underprivileged citizens of developing countries, with an emphasis on Asia, the Middle East and Africa. FLI is registered as a non-governmental (NGO) organization. FLI provides its services without charge, and it relies on contributions from American donors to support its activities.
FLI is organized exclusively for educational and charitable purposes. Its purposes include the following:
(a)Helping villagers rise out of poverty,
(b)Providing economic education to villagers,
(c)Teaching English as a second language to villagers, and
(d)Coordinating volunteer humanitarian efforts.
FLI helps villagers identify local resources and solutions for long-term economic stability, establishes agricultural programs for rural villagers, uses translators to bridge language barriers, and helps villagers incorporate effective economic and business principles into their lives. Instead of providing temporary relief, FLI provides long-term financial solutions for struggling families. Learning the English language is a first step to achieving economic stability for many low income developing countries. Many villagers are impoverished because they use their children as wage earners, and they cannot afford education. It is a damaging cycle of under educated villagers raising under educated children. FLI provides the education and economic training necessary to help villagers rise out of this damaging cycle.
FLI provides educational materials and financial supplies to villagers without charge. These materials include financial and business teaching training guides. As villagers become literate in the English language and begin saving their own money, they create self-sustaining economies within their own villages. FLI provides the education, economic training, and materials necessary for villagers to provide for their families.
FLI trains and sends volunteers to developing countries to teach English as a spoken language. These volunteers are self-supporting, and they pay for their own airfares and living expenses as a service to the needy villagers. FLI coordinates these educational efforts. FLI also coordinates fundraising in America to raise funds for the education of underprivileged villagers. FLI coordinates this fundraising primarily through newsletters to 501(c)(3) entities, corporations, and individual donors.
FLI is creating savings groups to help underprivileged villagers manage their own money. Through the savings groups, many villagers are able to save, loan, and borrow money within their own villages. FLI enables villagers to operate their own savings groups in order to maximize the potential for long-term economic stability within their villages. FLI provides lock-boxes to the villagers, and it helps the villagers formalize, adopt bylaws, and elect executive committees from within the villages. FLI covers all program expenses, including educational manuals, translations, printing, passbooks, and compensation for facilitators. The facilitators provide oversight and training for the managing villagers, and they provide redundancy in accounting to preserve the integrity of the groups. FLI programs are operated by FLI employees and volunteers, and those staff are directly supervised by FLI leadership. This fosters accountability and transparency within the program. FLI also obtains any required domestic and foreign audits, conducted by an independent and certified public accounting firm.
The FLI savings group program is effective. All funds saved and earned within the savings groups remain within the villages. Further, all savings groups have set term lengths, and at the end of each term, all funds in the savings groups are proportionately disbursed to the village members. The loan activities of the savings groups generate interest income for the remaining members of the groups.
FLI provides ongoing education, guidance, and direction to villagers. FLI also assists villages in establishing operating budgets for long-term stability. The FLI program is designed to change how underprivileged villagers view their positions in life. FLI helps villagers view themselves as valuable and capable businessmen and businesswomen, and it helps villagers realize that they are not inferior or low class human beings. FLI teaches personal responsibility and stewardship, and FLI helps villagers lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
FLI was developed out of a response to worldwide starvation, illiteracy, and child labor. FLI is motivated by the desire to help struggling villagers in developing countries, and it does not favor certain nationalities, religions, or races. All illiterate villagers are eligible to receive education and training. FLI’s domestic work is accomplished largely through volunteer efforts, and FLI seeks to maximize donate funds to assist struggling villagers.
All villagers who are uneducated, poor, and/or cannot speak English are eligible to receive FLI assistance. FLI focuses its assistance on those making an annual income of $1,000 or less. Many impoverished villagers live on less than $2.00 per day. These people are living at a subsistence level. Their daily challenge is to find food for their families. With FLI’s education and assistance, they are able to establish better lives.
FLI’s programs are currently being conducted in Asia, where FLI believes it is needed the most. As the program grows, most of the new groups are started by word-of- mouth publicity. Participants who appreciate FLI share information with friends and family members, resulting in local requests for assistance.
FLI is organized exclusively for educational and charitable purposes. Its purposes include the following:
(a)Helping villagers rise out of poverty,
(b)Providing economic education to villagers,
(c)Teaching English as a second language to villagers, and
(d)Coordinating volunteer humanitarian efforts.
FLI helps villagers identify local resources and solutions for long-term economic stability, establishes agricultural programs for rural villagers, uses translators to bridge language barriers, and helps villagers incorporate effective economic and business principles into their lives. Instead of providing temporary relief, FLI provides long-term financial solutions for struggling families. Learning the English language is a first step to achieving economic stability for many low income developing countries. Many villagers are impoverished because they use their children as wage earners, and they cannot afford education. It is a damaging cycle of under educated villagers raising under educated children. FLI provides the education and economic training necessary to help villagers rise out of this damaging cycle.
FLI provides educational materials and financial supplies to villagers without charge. These materials include financial and business teaching training guides. As villagers become literate in the English language and begin saving their own money, they create self-sustaining economies within their own villages. FLI provides the education, economic training, and materials necessary for villagers to provide for their families.
FLI trains and sends volunteers to developing countries to teach English as a spoken language. These volunteers are self-supporting, and they pay for their own airfares and living expenses as a service to the needy villagers. FLI coordinates these educational efforts. FLI also coordinates fundraising in America to raise funds for the education of underprivileged villagers. FLI coordinates this fundraising primarily through newsletters to 501(c)(3) entities, corporations, and individual donors.
FLI is creating savings groups to help underprivileged villagers manage their own money. Through the savings groups, many villagers are able to save, loan, and borrow money within their own villages. FLI enables villagers to operate their own savings groups in order to maximize the potential for long-term economic stability within their villages. FLI provides lock-boxes to the villagers, and it helps the villagers formalize, adopt bylaws, and elect executive committees from within the villages. FLI covers all program expenses, including educational manuals, translations, printing, passbooks, and compensation for facilitators. The facilitators provide oversight and training for the managing villagers, and they provide redundancy in accounting to preserve the integrity of the groups. FLI programs are operated by FLI employees and volunteers, and those staff are directly supervised by FLI leadership. This fosters accountability and transparency within the program. FLI also obtains any required domestic and foreign audits, conducted by an independent and certified public accounting firm.
The FLI savings group program is effective. All funds saved and earned within the savings groups remain within the villages. Further, all savings groups have set term lengths, and at the end of each term, all funds in the savings groups are proportionately disbursed to the village members. The loan activities of the savings groups generate interest income for the remaining members of the groups.
FLI provides ongoing education, guidance, and direction to villagers. FLI also assists villages in establishing operating budgets for long-term stability. The FLI program is designed to change how underprivileged villagers view their positions in life. FLI helps villagers view themselves as valuable and capable businessmen and businesswomen, and it helps villagers realize that they are not inferior or low class human beings. FLI teaches personal responsibility and stewardship, and FLI helps villagers lift themselves and their families out of poverty.
FLI was developed out of a response to worldwide starvation, illiteracy, and child labor. FLI is motivated by the desire to help struggling villagers in developing countries, and it does not favor certain nationalities, religions, or races. All illiterate villagers are eligible to receive education and training. FLI’s domestic work is accomplished largely through volunteer efforts, and FLI seeks to maximize donate funds to assist struggling villagers.
All villagers who are uneducated, poor, and/or cannot speak English are eligible to receive FLI assistance. FLI focuses its assistance on those making an annual income of $1,000 or less. Many impoverished villagers live on less than $2.00 per day. These people are living at a subsistence level. Their daily challenge is to find food for their families. With FLI’s education and assistance, they are able to establish better lives.
FLI’s programs are currently being conducted in Asia, where FLI believes it is needed the most. As the program grows, most of the new groups are started by word-of- mouth publicity. Participants who appreciate FLI share information with friends and family members, resulting in local requests for assistance.
Micro-Enterprise Entrepreneurship
Small or micro-enterprise business teaching is a key cornerstone of FLI. This critical teaching and accountability in a format that is specific and relevant to their own village or community is very important. Each week they can discuss challenges they are facing and their peers and the facilitator will usually find a sustainable way to assist and answer the need. The facilitators, which are employed by FLI, provide weekly monitoring and supervision. FLI’s economic instruction addresses things such as understanding unmet business needs in the community for new micro-enterprise business markets, integrity, honesty, customer service, attractive display if selling products at markets, pricing strategies, consistent business hours, and more. FLI covers all expenses related to translations, printing and all technical programming needed for its programs.
English Language Teaching
In many countries, learning the English language helps vulnerable and disadvantaged people provide for their families. Further, if a person knows the English language he/she can obtain a much better job in the technology, computer, data entry or communications fields including outsourcing jobs for international businesses. Accordingly, FLI proposes to provide English Language teaching within developing countries at the request of the applicable school authorities. All English teachers are provided by FLI from North America. Teachers are volunteer high school graduates, and must be certified by the Institute for the Nations with Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Teachers must also follow the local school authority’s program and schedule. The objective of the English Teaching program is to provide disadvantaged and vulnerable poor people with a way to rise out of poverty.