Financial Literacy Program For The Kenyan Youths

The Financial Literacy program for Kenyan youth is a collaboration between The Youth Cafe and the Co-operative Bank of Kenya. Throughout the project, The Youth Cafe is leading the management while staff at Cooperative Bank form part of the core management team and lead the partnership's technical excellence. 

This project is aimed to assist in demystifying the banking sector and offer expert advice, and educate the youth to improve their ability to make sound financial decisions in areas such as Credit and Debt:

This project considers appropriate and inappropriate uses of loans, credit cards, and other types of money owed, managing credit and understanding the impact of debt on a person’s or family’s financial situation, as well as Insuring: Anticipating and preparing for future needs in losses or unexpected events (e.g., car, health, property, and life insurance, and Saving and Investing: Building financial resources for short-, mid-and long-term goals.

The two organizations created the core of our partnership at the baseline. Still, we recognize that as the project evolves, we may bring in additional expertise and, as such, have had several conversations with other specialist firms, including SACCOS, Microfinance institutions, Small, Medium-Sized enterprises, Technology and Communications firms, as well as the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KNCCI), among others. 

The Youth Cafe is a premier youth enterprise development institution with the broadest national reach in terms of membership and catalyzing commerce and industry in Kenya. However, we also engaged these firms once we better understood the scope of work and touchpoints, ensuring that we could bring on the best partners to meet young people’s financial literacy needs. 

As a partnership, The Youth Cafe and its strategic partners leverage the extensive track record of working in Kenya in several sectors, including financial deepening and inclusion, corporate social responsibility, sustainable development, youth empowerment, community development, rapid assessments, data collection, and management, education, and financial services.

At The Youth Cafe we are innovators with experience in trialing and developing new techniques in youth-led development which are technology-driven in our approaches

Over the years, The Youth Cafe has undertaken projects geared toward economic empowerment benefiting over 2.2 million young people. In 2022, The Youth Cafe prioritizes inclusive development to ensure that more young people benefit from economic growth and development.

We aim to reduce poverty and inequality in both income and non-income dimensions.  In line with this vision, The Youth Café is piloting this financial literacy intervention program for youth. This is key in addressing young men and women's unique problems and helping them navigate the real financial world. 

Therefore, we provide our partners with the experiential background and rigorous approach to support the project to generate transformational change and sustainable impact. This project offers an opportunity for banking institutions to continue supporting the youth in Kenya and grow their existing products like the Cooperative Bank’s YEA Account.

Insights from Financial Literacy Needs Assessment from The Youth Cafe
The partnership allowed The Youth Cafe to offer various products to the participants. To start with, The Youth Cafe conducted a survey whose inputs were key in addressing young men and women's unique problems and helping them navigate the real financial world. The questions sought to address the following age and gender of the participants, their financial attitudes, and financial influences.

The information collected using the online survey form was used to understand youth financial attitude, behavior, and influences and was used as a guide to our financial literacy program. The survey was conducted over the month of May had 570 respondents between the ages of 18-35, and yielded some of the following major insights:

59.5% of the respondents were males, 39.8% were females, and 0.7% preferred not to state their gender, and of whom 24.2% were between ages 18-22, 18.8% were between the ages of 28-32, and 8.2% were between the ages of 33-35.

We noted that 77% of the respondents were interested in learning more about investing, 68% about savings and 45% of respondents were interested in banking.

Of the total respondents, 70% of the participants earn less than kshs. 14,000/= and therefore require financial advice on how to grow their income and manage their current wage, which is very small.

47% of respondents want to start a business, and 24% want to increase their savings.

Respondents expressed interest in increased financial knowledge, accounting for 80% of the participants. Given that there were nearly 600 respondents, this is a large percentage and confirms that financial literacy is an area of concern among the youth.

Based on the level of education, 50.5% of the respondents were at the undergraduate level, 38,6% were at the graduate level, and 10.9% were at the High school level.

26.7% of the respondents were somewhat thrifty, often saving money, 22.6% were very thrifty, saving money whenever possible, 22.3% were somewhat spending-oriented, seldom saving money, 16% were neither thrifty nor spending oriented, and 12.5% were very oriented in spending, hardly ever saving money.

The Project goal is to work on a financial literacy program for youth, support the implementation of their youth empowerment interventions, and enable The Youth Cafe’s strategic partners to grow the portfolio of its youth-centered products.

 The program had 570 young people who showed interest in the Financial Literacy Program; 199 respondents were accepted for the program. After a successful learning period between July and August, graduating young people of the total accepted participants were awarded a certificate of participation and completion of the program on the 19th of August 2022 at The Youth Cafe office by their trainer Ruth. 

Among those who took part in the award ceremony included Simon Njoroge, Purity Karimi Kirema, Monica Ndila Mbinda, Linda Ojuka, Kevin Koech, Edith Nthenya Mutunge, Wechuli Polyne Nafula, and Alfred Wabuko Manyasi.

The program's beneficiaries learned a lot from the Financial Literacy training; some of the modules included an Introduction- setting SMART Goals to meet our Financial needs, The 5C’s of financial literacy- Earning and Spending: Savings and Investments, Credit/Debt, and Insurance, Budgeting, Maslow's Hierarchy of financial needs- how our finances can meet All our needs, Investments-what is the right investment product for me, Credit and debt- when should I take on debt, how much will it cost me and what if I am unable to pay? Insurance- how do I protect myself and my family against unexpected loss?

Furthermore, the participants were able to Understand the best techniques you can employ to increase savings and reduce spending. They also developed Smart Measurable Attainable and Time-based(SMART) financial goals that positively impact their lives. Prioritize and categorize the most important goals and give them a timeline.

Despite the program's successes, it also faced some challenges during its implementation; the participants had undertaken the program during the Covid-19 pandemic; they were faced with various challenges, including lack of data and internet connectivity and time inconveniences. The Youth cafe will address the challenges in the next phase of the program to make it more efficient and successful for the youth. 

The Youth cafe, in collaboration with the cooperative bank of Kenya staff, will conduct the next phase of the program physically; this will curb challenges of lack of data and internet connectivity. The participants will have one-on-one sessions with their trainer, enabling them to interact with their fellow participants and get a platform to share ideas and learn from each other, making the program more lively, practical, and engaging.