Fostering financial well-being

by Shelagh McLoughlin
29 July 2024
29 July 2024

 

Chloe Jacquin was not the stereotypical business school graduate. “I was interested in people and making a difference in their lives,” she says. At business school, she was interested in “ethics, finance, financial inclusion and anything related to that.”

Her interests have led to a colourful career, often far away from her homeland in Bordeaux, France. She has worked in 15 countries with more than 200 organisations, one of which has been SaveAct, since 2013. Apart from helping SaveAct to create illustrative content for the financial education (FE) it delivers to its savings group members, Ms Jacquin has also been involved with SaveAct in a current project, Alive, and a pilot for another with the Duzi-uMngeni Conservation Trust. Both projects are about providing a relevant intervention for youth from low-income backgrounds.

Ms Jacquin’s career started with an internship with an NGO, PlaNet Finance, now called Power People Inclusion. She took up a position at their South African office, where she focused on financial education and consumer protection. Ms Jacquin worked with PlaNet Finance for 11 years including five in South Africa.

“They also have regional hubs in Madagascar, Senegal and Egypt, that’s how I started working in different countries,” she says. She became the coordinator for financial education, putting together training material and capacity-building programmes to support staff and organisations being trained. “I was designing how to get to what needed to be done. I worked with different artists in developing the learning approach,” she says.

The focus of her work has been on financial education, entrepreneurship and women’s empowerment. She worked with EmpowerHer, which focuses on women’s entrepreneurship. She was also the Africa area manager and worked intensively in Niger, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire.

Ms Jacquin has been self-employed since last year when she set up a social and solidarity business called “Fiinafas”.  She explains that “Fiinafas”, an Arabic phrase, basically means “there is breathing. “Fiinafas unlocks the financial well-being of economically disadvantaged people, and more specifically vulnerable women and youth, so they are more in control of their financial potential. Its focus is on local solutions.”

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