The Edufinet Project, promoted by Unicaja Banco and Fundación Unicaja, participates in the Back2Work program, developed by the tech firm Oracle in Malaga to foster entrepreneurship among women at risk of social exclusion.
This program is a learning incubator made up by volunteers, mainly from Oracle, ESIC and Edufinet, and created with the goal of providing assistance to the participating women for them to launch their own businesses and to be financially independent.
For four months, the women who participate in the program will receive assistance to prepare a feasible business plan for their projects, obtaining personalized and ongoing support, and with all the knowledge tools needed so that, once the program is completed, they will be able to manage their own business and ensure that in can last over time.
The program, which as opened online, includes online training lessons and three in-person sessions, which will be given by the Edufinet Project team at its Financial Education Center in Malaga.
In addition to the Edufinet Project, the Back2Work program has the support and direct collaboration of Malaga City Council (through Promálaga), BIC Euronova, Malaga Confederation of Business Owners (CEM), ESIC, PTA and Women in Malaga TechPark, as well as Asociación de Mujeres Profesionales y Empresarias de Málaga (Amupema), Asociación de Mujeres Empresarias del Sector del Medio Ambiente (ANSEMAC), Coordinadora Andaluza de Organizaciones de Mujeres Rurales (COAMUR) and Málaga Comercio. External consultants such as Amalia Fernández, Rosa Muriel and Mova Consulting also collaborate in the program.
With more than 15 years of history, the Edufinet Project is one of the first financial education programmes launched in Spain, and whose dissemination work has been recognized with several awards. Currently, 16 universities and more than ten business organizations and institutions collaborate with and support the project.
Trailblazing project in Spain
Although its development began in 2005, since 2007 the Edufinet Project is available through an Internet portal addressed to a general audience. Since it started, more than 180,000 people have participated in the different workshops, seminars, courses and lectures that it has carried out.
The website (www.edufinet.com) has registered more than ten million visits, with access from nearly 180 countries. Likewise, it has other portals with specific content, such as Edufinext, for young people; Edufiemp, for business owners and entrepreneurs, and Edufiaagro, to raise awareness on the importance of financial literacy in the agricultural sector.
The website features other sections such as Edufiblog, EdufiAcademics, EdufiTech and a videogame. It also has a YouTube channel and profiles on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
All of the above have made Unicaja, one of the first institutions in Spain to launch an initiative of this kind, to be one of the most active agents in the fields of financial education and inclusion, under the exercise of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its commitment to society.