KEPA and microSTARS run the “Borrow Wisely” campaign in Greece, which has been initiated by the Microfinance Centre (MFC) six years ago and still continues promoting global client protection standards through borrowers’ education.
This year, KEPA and microSTARS promoted the #2019BWC “Borrow Wisely” campaign by becoming involved in the “Skills Camp Thessaloniki 2019”, an open event held by the “Women on Top” Organization, between 3rd and 6th of October, 2019.
The “Skills Camp Thessaloniki 2019” was a series of professional empowerment workshops designed to help unemployed women, professionals, active and potential entrepreneurs, bring their best to the job and manage the changes that they want to do with their career: by taking their first business step, changing their career, developing their leadership skills, having more free time, promoting their work, finding the ideal clients, partners, employers, to improve their daily lives at work.
Ms. Agni Pagouni, Head of microSTARS Office in Thessaloniki, was the facilitator of the workshop under the title “How to fund your business”, where she presented alternative tools, with which a potential or existing business could be funded. Apart from the main topic of this workshop, the participants were given the opportunity to become familiar with issues of financial literacy, that 2019BWC promotes.
Financial literacy, as defined by the OECD (2012), is a combination of awareness, knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors, that is, elements that are essential for making sound financial decisions, with the ultimate goal of achieving individual financial prosperity.
Through the active participation of the attendees to the online questionnaire, as was being presented during the workshop, the female participants had the opportunity to read the questions that were included in the Health Check Quiz, answer some of them, and discuss the meaning of the financial health.
The purpose of the Health Check Quiz is to enable each entrepreneur to have a clear view of their finances, initially as individuals, and in the long run as entrepreneurs, about the finances and financial management of their business. Mainly though, its use enables them to have a clear view of managing their finances related to any form of financing (usually financing refers to providing funding / capital, lending).
