Non-Formal Education is a core component of Friendship Bridge’s Microcredit Plus program. While microcredit provides our clients with a hand up for their businesses, education provides them with an asset for life: skills and knowledge to create sustainable change for themselves, their children, and their communities.
Friendship Bridge provides participatory education lessons on topics clients identified as most important, including business and finance management, women’s rights, health, and family. Friendship Bridge’s Credit & Education Facilitators deliver the Non-Formal Education lessons at each Trust Bank’s monthly loan repayment meetings.
How does it work?
Our educational curriculum is unique and responsive to our client’s needs, taking into consideration that the average Friendship Bridge client has approximately 3.4 years of formal education and does not read, write, or speak Spanish (instead speaking one of 22 Indigenous Mayan languages in Guatemala). Lessons are interactive and are delivered through resources with illustrations to accompany text so all clients can follow along. Additionally, our Credit & Education Facilitators must speak both Spanish and the local Mayan language of the Trust Banks they serve to ensure that all clients can understand the lessons.
Learn more about Trust Banks and Non-Formal Education
Watch an extended documentary-style video focused on Trust Banks and our Non-Formal Education program: spaces where women come together to learn, share experiences, and strengthen one another. These experiences generate momentum that reaches beyond the meeting space, creating ripple effects felt throughout entire communities.
Watch the video
