Many refugees and migrants have no access to banks and other financial services, in this sense, the enormous hurdle on their way to self-reliance and economic independence will be addressed. Furthermore, third country nationals often lack confidence and motivation for self-employment.
The PLOUTOS project – “Cooperation for achieving third country nationals’ financial independence through financial literacy tools and entrepreneurship bootcamps” - addresses these challenges. The aim of PLOUTOS is to improve third country nationals’ access to financial services via:
- a course on financial literacy and sustainability supported by a relevant language course;
- a course on community interpreting offered to people already offering this service without having had any professional training (including migrants residing in the host country for more than 3 years, second generation, employees of financial service providers and NGOs);
- practice business programme enabling practical training of third country nationals in applying their financial literacy skills on the job;
- multilingual technical tools offering migrants with business training & access to microfinance in any EU country through the 96 members of the European Microfinance Network, lifting cultural and administrative burdens.
The multi-stakeholder consortium of 11 project partners from 7 EU member states (SE,CY,GR,IT,BE,HR,BG) includes 2 universities, 2 SMEs, 1 banking & 1 microfinance associations, 1 pubic authority representative and 4 NGOs. Sofia Development Association is a project partner, while the lead consortium partner is the Swedish research institution Hogskolan I Halmstad. The project duration is 3 years – from November 2021 to October 2024.
PLOUTOS will impact the local communities by providing third country nationals with a new skillset as well as it will reduce the fear and instability that comes as a result of their dependence on the surrounding society.
The project partners will develop financial literacy educational materials, an acceleration practice business programme and a financial tool that could be scaled up and broadly replicated.
This project is funded by the European Union’s Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund.