Financial literacy for displaced Ukrainians starting over.

Student-founded, student-run. Everything we make is free, and always will be.

Impact

3,000+

Ukrainians reached

Savings

200+

opened their first savings account

Emergency funds

400+

built an emergency fund

U.S. chapters

3

Texas, New Jersey, Georgia

Views

10,000+

on our bilingual training videos

Raised

$1,500+

goes into funding our activities

Three years ago I signed up to volunteer with ENGin, which pairs Ukrainian students with English-speaking volunteers. I expected to teach English. Mostly I listened. My students talked about planning a life when the currency, the job market and the electricity were all uncertain, and when their families might have to start over in a country whose financial system nobody had explained to them.

The same questions came up week after week. Where do I put money so the war does not eat it? Is a deposit safe? If we leave, how does any of this work over there? These were not questions about arithmetic. They were questions nobody had answered, for students who had every reason to be asking them.

We are the sons of immigrant parents, so the second half was already familiar. We had watched our own families struggle with an unfamiliar system and get taken in by scams. They were smart and they worked hard. Nobody had given them the information they needed. A displaced family should not have to learn a new financial system in a language they are still learning.

So we built one course on the system they now live in: bank accounts, credit scores, paychecks and taxes. We recorded it twice, once in Ukrainian and once in English, and brought it to displaced Ukrainians in free bootcamps. It is free, self-paced and open to anyone. There is no fee, no account, and no waiting for a school to adopt it.

- Aditya Herekar, Co-founder

Young people score lowest in both countries

Teenagers and young adults have the lowest financial literacy in Ukraine and in the country where many displaced families now live. A displaced family runs into both gaps at once.

Built with Ukrainian students

Our courses grew out of years of weekly conversations with Ukrainian teenagers through ENGin, the nonprofit pairing Ukrainian learners with English-speaking volunteers. Aditya has volunteered with ENGin for more than three years, and our work was featured in ENGin's volunteer newsletter.

Those conversations are why the course is in Ukrainian as well as English. Families can learn their new financial system in the language they think in.

On the official TEDx channel

A TEDx talk about one Ukrainian student

Українська

From zero, in Ukrainian

For Ukrainian speakers · ~30 min

A new financial system explained in Ukrainian, for displaced families who would rather learn in their own language.

• 01 Budgeting and spending
• 02 Bank accounts, credit, interest
• 03 Saving and protecting your money

English

From zero, in English

The same lessons in English. It covers what schools rarely teach and what nobody explains to a family that just arrived.

• 01 Credit scores and building credit
• 02 Bank accounts, taxes, paychecks
• 03 Saving, investing, avoiding scams

Hear it from a school authority

A church school principal talks about what she thinks about the workshops.