Stephen, Managing director at Postbank Uganda, shares his thoughts with us about the Aflatoun programme and Child Friendly Banking: “Postbank Uganda’s mission is to empower its customers in a sustainable manner, therefore the partnership with PEDN [Uganda implementing organization] is in line with our mission since it’s an opportunity to empower children and instill a savings culture through offering them a flexible saving account tailored specifically to meet their needs".

In collaboration with one of Aflatoun's partner in Indonesia, LAPIS (Learning Assitance Programme for Islamic Schools), Aflatoun is active in 67 schools in the three provinces. The Aflatoun program was introduced in schools with over 10,000 students. The program has been implemented through Aflatoun clubs that have been set up in some schools and introduces a savings box and social boxes inside the schools.

Savings Boxes and Social Boxes

The savings box inside the schools allows children to practive saving their money, and encourages a transparent savings process whereby both the teachers and the children countersign a savings books before depositing their savings.

As well as the savings boxes, the Aflatoun club has also create a social box - a box in which children can dontate anything they please. Lately, the donations were gathered and send to their friends in the neighbouring district of Bima, which recently experienced disastrous earthquakes.

Caring for the Environments

To address issues of environmental protection and sustainability, Aflatoun children make bags, wallets, decorations, flowers' vast, baskets and necklaces from recycled materials as an activity in their Aflatoun savings clubs. The schools support the students by organizing events such as exhibition show in order to celebrate of special days where they can sell what they have made to raise more money for their group savings clubs.

Training of Teachers

LAPIS (Learning Assistance Program for Islamic Schools) have conducted teachers' training of Aflatoun on October 2009. 132 teachers of Madrasah Ibtidaiyah (Islamic elementary school) and MTs (Islamic yunior high school) participated in Aflatoun training in three provinces: (1) South Sulawesi (36 teachers); (2) East Java (63 teachers); and (3) Nusa Tenggara Barat (33 teachers). All of training's alumni expressed their positive experience of the way training have been delivered. They have expressed that the training has since been inspiring them to improve their method of teaching, particualary through  using some games to energize children and incite their enthusiasm toward learning. What's more, in Malang regency, East Java province, Aflatoun teachers set an association of Aflatoun teachers. They meet once in a month to share each other about the programs.

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