Library = Knowledge = Wealth Strengthening Citizens Financial - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Library = Knowledge = Wealth Strengthening Citizens’ Financial Literacy Project Mrs Jasmina Ninkov, Ms Vesna Vuksan, Mr Marjan Marinkovi ć Belgrade City Library phone. +381 11 20 24 000 e-mail: info@bgb.rs

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The Belgrade City Library is the largest lending library in Serbia. It is a parent library for a network of 13 municipal libraries and their branches. Its holdings consist of almost 2.000.000 items , kept in 76 facilities with a total area of 13.000 square meters. Number of BCL users is 9.6% of the population in 2009 (it’s exactly 123.274 members ). The Library has about 300 employees.

The Belgrade City Library - Central building The Library has 76 facilities: 1 central building with 7 dislocated facilities, 13 municipal libraries with 53 branch libraries, and 2 separate children's departments .

BCL - Central building The Gallery Reading room Press conference hall Periodical department

BCL - Central building The Roman hall - one of the most popular cultural sites in town

Municipal library Petar Ko č i ć – one of the most beautiful libraries in the BCL network

The Belgrade City Library Financing From budget of the City of Belgrade

The Belgrade City Library Website www.bg gb.rs b.rs www.b

Library = Knowledge = Wealth or or Can a library save people money? or All the things a librarian can do a librarian can do! All the

Strengthening Citizens’ Financial Literacy Project The project has been realized since October 2009, in partnership with the USAID / Serbia Economic Growth Activity Project (SEGA Project).

What is SEGA? The USAID/Serbia Economic Growth Activity (SEGA) was launched in June 2006, and is a four- year program designed to assist the country in improving the environment for economic growth and job creation by strengthening Serbia’s financial sector and government fiscal policy. The program is helping the government to improve governance, management, and human capacity in key institutions so they can more effectively manage Serbia’s full transition to a market economy. SEGA works with the National Bank of Serbia, Ministry of Finance, Securities Commission, Ministry of Social Affairs…

Strengthening Citizens’ Financial Literacy Project The project consists of two segments: � training for librarians to hold financial literacy workshops and � development of a website for citizens’ financial education The main project goal is to improve financial literacy of Serbian citizens.

Workshops Fifteen librarians from BCL network passed a two- day training in the basics of financial literacy and methodology for working with high school students. The training was led by SEGA’s financial experts.

The two-day training � The first day - financial education for librarians. The librarians received an electronic copy of the PP presentation which served as a basis for workshops which they subsequently held. They also received other electronic and hard copy educational materials related to financial services. � The second day - methodology of working with high school students and improvement of speaking and presentation skills of librarians.

Training photos

Workshops THE GOAL THE GOAL The goal of these workshops is to introduce basic financial concepts – common financial products (deposits, loans, shares, insurance...), the importance of saving, risk and return in investment, the right to receive accurate information while investing, et cetera. Education also involves two specially designed budget planning exercises. In the end of the workshop, educational brochures are distributed to students.

Workshops THE CONTENT THE CONTENT The workshop consists of � interpretation and interactive commenting on the (above mentioned) PP presentation that is presented on the screen � two specially designed budget planning group exercises

Workshops THE RESULTS THE RESULTS Immediately after the workshop, the librarian would forward the evaluation form and 3 photos from the workshop to the project coordinator. Around 50 workshops were held, for some 1000 students (20 students per workshop, on average). The previous project results were encouraging as the workshops attracted high interest among students, who found them unique and very useful .

Website www.novcici.rs www.novcici.rs Coins family The website was launched in April 2010. The idea is to present, in a simplified manner, the basic principles of managing personal and family finance and to provide the basic information about how certain financial products function and how we can use them effectively. It is an educational and advisory website which also offers a series of practical tools.

Key word – EDUCATION EDUCATION We are not offering to citizens professional services in the field of finance, we are providing education on the basics of financial literacy. What we are offering is a part of general knowledge of a contemporary man, knowledge necessary to lead a higher quality and more organized life . Exactly this word – education, i.e. literacy – is of key importance in explaining why a public library is involved in this area.

Mrs Jasmina Ninkov, Ms Vesna Vuksan, Mr Marjan Marinkovi ć Belgrade City Library phone. +381 11 20 24 000 e-mail: info@bgb.rs