In Australia, we expect our governments to financially support us during covid. But what happens in places where this support is much more difficult to access?

Our trainers in Nepal won’t let a long journey by foot stop them from delivering our financial education programs.

If you have ever read an article on community development or microfinance, you will recognise the terms ‘financial capability development’ and ‘financial education’. Often used interchangeably, these terms represent very different concepts.

We recently met with our Cambodian loan partner, Chamroeun Microfinance, and visited some branch offices and local villages to get a sense of the loan process, from finding out about the financial service to final approval.

Disability is a cause and a consequence of poverty. This means, if you are living with a disability, you are more likely to live in poverty, and if you live in poverty you are more likely to develop a disability. But the cycle between disability and poverty can be broken.

One of the key issues that we need to overcome is the recognition of multi-dimensional vulnerability - or simply, people that are discriminated against for more than one reason, all at once.

If you had been told your entire life that you were incapable of doing something, you had never seen anyone else like you do it, and you had never been given the opportunity to try it - would you believe that you were able to?

Our newest financial education coaches have learnt how to share skills with their local community - and made sure they had fun along the way.

Maiya’s financial capability training has helped her start her incense making business.

We're inspired by Sunita who has used her financial education training to start a shop that is going from strength-to-strength.

An accident in the family has not stopped Samai from achieving her financial goals for her family.

Padma is one of the CAFE program participants in Nepal, who learned how to take control of her finances. An unexpected benefit of financial capability training for Padma was that she learnt how to adopt a healthier diet!