BARMM Youth Financial Inclusion Accelerator

Young people should be at the forefront of global change and innovation. Empowered, they can be key agents for development and peace.

-Kofi Annan

Our mission at the Financial Inclusion Lab is to equip changemakers with platforms, assets, and relationships to create a more inclusive society and sustainable planet. As a part of this mission, we have created the Youth Financial Inclusion Accelerator Program to mobilize youth to spread financial inclusion and innovations at the community levels and replicating at the regional and national levels. 

We have worked with with over 1000+ community leaders in 7 countries and…

we have gained incredibly valuable insights including:

Innovation Mindsets can be Learned – while design thinking approaches not yet mainstream among schools, innovative thinking is infectious and can be caught when the right environment is created. The story of community change has become focused too much on bureaucracy and politics. The backbone of social change, however, is small teams of individuals with the tools and platforms to invite allies to co-create new futures.

Online collaboration can get BIG – when learners share and collaborate across regions or countries, seeds of scalable impact are planted. Our 11-month program supports teams as they design and prototype projects, leveraging formal and informal networks as platforms of allies. Scaling successful model benefits even more communities and young leaders, reducing poverty, strengthening local governance, and creating a more just economy.

Schools and communities are social innovation labs - the traditional model of school research being separate from barangay implementation is not working. We can instill a new sense of possibility among youth to use their student projects to actually implement impact-oriented projects right in their own communities.

Inter-sectoral Co-creation has Powerful Ripple Effects – the reality is that the right connections help a lot, and that these connections can be broadened to unlock inter-sectoral synergies. We don’t have to feel shy or guilty about connecting to partners who can help our advocacy – but we must find allies in government, CSOs and private sectors to produce public value for everyone.

Program Strategy

The Youth Financial Inclusion Accelerator works with committed youth leaders to achieve dramatic improvements in financial inclusion at barangay, municipal, city, provincial, regional, and national scale. Through a combination of digital tools, communication strategies, and governance innovations, young changemakers can mobilize communities and resources to open hearts and minds, combat biases and inequities, and activate ALL stakeholders to do their part.

Use Storytelling

to Shift Perspectives

We are using stories of the participating changemakers and social entrepreneurs to create projects and reframe the story of youth innovation and entrepreneurship.

Create Equal Opportunity for Under-served Changemakers

Working together with Impact Partners who know their communities best, we provide changemakers from diverse locations, economies, races, religions, gender associations, ages, and physical abilities with innovation infrastructure and support and access to peer, business, and capital networks.

Collective Changemaker Support

Sometimes tools and skills are not enough. The community of fellow changemakers, accountability conversations, and collaborative analysis and interpretation help changemakers continue to push forth in the sometimes frustrating and emotionally draining work of social change.

Digital Transformation in Governance Accelerates Gains

Using our digital platforms, ideation, design, and launch are far easier to do at scale. The right collaboration tools help changemaker teams design and implement 10 times faster than when they work in isolation.

Sangguniang Kabataan Changemakers as Innovation Bootcamp Champions

Universities and Senior High Schools as Research and Innovation Partners (Town and Gown approach)

ROLES OF DIFFERENT AGENCIES