How An Online Financial Tool Aims to Educate the Disadvantaged

Every day Melbourne Citymission works with disadvantaged, vulnerable and disabled people across Victoria. Their support offers pathways out of homelessness, support to help break the poverty cycle, resources for the disabled and assistance to enable individuals to find jobs or enter education or training. Their programs cover a range of areas including justice, aged care, employment and skills training. These programs support and assist individuals in improving their lives. Therefore, educational and training programs are vital for Melbourne Citymission’s work as they can lessen the harm for those experiencing disadvantage.

Craig Murphy, a Virtual Learning Consultant from ANZ, was familiar with an internationally run program called ‘Lingo’ which is an eLearning Competition that provides course developers with the opportunity to work with not for profit organisations to develop online courses. When ANZ’s Global Learning Team identified an opportunity to build an online course, Melbourne Citymission was chosen as the community partner to benefit from the skilled volunteer’s initiative, which was based on a number of criteria. Steve Maillet, Director, Employment, Education & Training at Melbourne Citymission, said ANZ then approved “Melbourne Citymission's proposal to develop an online financial literacy tool that would build the skills of our clients to understand budgeting in a fun and interactive way”.

A team of 12 from the ANZ took part in the project (still under way) and included skills in project management, design and multi-media. The online tool, which is now under development, is based partly on Melbourne Citymission’s board game ‘Another Day, Another Dollar’ which was produced back in 2005. It is based around a variety of young characters from diverse backgrounds facing challenging circumstances, primarily of a financial nature. Steve Maillet says the “ANZ staff have been fantastic in developing the project strategy, conducting staff consultations, facilitating client learning needs analysis workshops, hosting our clients in their multimedia facilities, and progressing the development of this worthwhile resource”.

Craig Murphy, who was part of the ANZ team, says the online module “will eventually sit on the Melbourne Citymission website or perhaps a CD, designed to go to the youth age disadvantaged clients”. The aim is to have the project completed by late October 2011. He says he “enjoyed the experience and it was great to see a different client base” and to have a group of students from Fitzroy North coming in to see the multi-media space at ANZ. He says once the project is up running and the ANZ Team have assisted in how to get content live Melbourne Citymission should be self-sufficient in running the program. This all goes well for financial literacy education and for those who will benefit most.