Life Skills Empowerment beneficiaries visit Bank

Bank of Baroda Executive explaining about Bank functioning

“Speak today and several voices will be heard tomorrow”

Girls are the change makers not only of a household but also of the society. Mumbai Smiles with this ideology launched the Life Skills Empowerment program for adolescent girls in the communities and has received extremely positive response in the last four months. The main objective of the Life Skills empowerment for girls program is to empower girls and to make them independent. The program objective also looks at encouraging the girls from difficult back grounds and thus helping them make their own decisions which will be in turn beneficial for them.

The program aims at a holistic development of the girls. One of the aspects includes money management and financial independence. The kind of social structure the girls come from does not provide them the privilege of saving money with the banks as they are not aware about the various methods. In such a situation the money is normally kept at home or with a relative which doesn’t ensure complete safety. It is always safer to save money with the more trusted institute which is the bank. Hence a visit to the bank was organized for the girls. They visited a nearby branch of Bank of Baroda. The visit to the bank ensured full knowledge of the various functions of the banks as well as different ways in which money could be saved. After imparting the complete information by one of the Bank Executives, the girls took an individual decision to open their bank accounts. The girls have also taken an onus that they would be visiting the bank on their own and carrying out the transactions in the future.

Renu, one of the beneficiaries said that “the visit to the bank gave us a very good opportunity to understand how the bank functions and what the advantages of keeping money with a bank are. I have also taken a form and will open an account soon for myself.”

Through these exposure activities we ensure that the girls are given an opportunity to learn about basic life skills and are able to make independent and informed decisions.

LSE girls with the animators outside Bank of Baroda, Marol branch