The Hungarian OTP Fáy András Foundation and the OTP Ready Foundation from Slovakia held an opening event of their joint two-year program at the Selye János University in Komárno on October 26, 2017, supported by the Regional Development Fund and the European Union under the Interreg V-A Slovakia-Hungary Cooperation Program.
At the event, more than 100 attendees were present and listened to the brief introduction of the two organizations, the presentation of the program, and the reports of the head of two schools already involved in financial, economic and management trainings. At the end of the event, a very interesting professional lecture was presented to the participants, in Tomáš Pešek’s interpretation, they could learn more about how to bring the knowledge to be transferred closer to today's younger generations.
To date, the two foundations provided free, future-oriented, financial, economic, management and career trainings for over 100,000 primary and high school students. The methodology used in the trainings is the so called "OK Methodology", which is their own unique and complex educational method, based mostly on inspirational pedagogical and edutainment elements and has a completely unique content.
The purpose of this program - with a total budget of 291,744.60 Euros - is to attract as many people as possible to the aforementioned courses, thus raising the level of financial culture of the two countries. Another objective is to provide a contribution to business development, to reform the education and give assistance in curbing emigration and help to fight against the disadvantages through training and awareness-raising events.
During the two-year project period, more than 3700 students and 180 adults will be trained on both sides of the border, and in 2018 the program will be expanded: 3 adult bilingual curricula and 3 interactive whiteboard applications will be developed to spread financial literacy even more rapidly.
In addition, as a result of the project, in 2018 an OK Educational Centre with three classrooms in it will be established in Trnava. Thus, within the framework of the OK Project, this will be the second foreign educational centre, after the Centre in Bucharest, which was opened this October.
At the end of the event, or even during the break of the event several schools indicated their willingness to participate in our trainings with their students. Tomáš Pešek, education professional, highlighted in his presentation how good and valuable is the methodology used by the two foundations.
As Angelika Mikócziová said in her presentation, "We truly believe that the financial education of the up-and-coming generation is key to a successful adult life. That is how we help raising a generation, who could handle their finances responsibly and are able to decide on financial matters properly."
The leaders of OTP Fáy András Foundation and the OTP Ready Foundation are confident - within the framework of the OK Project - they will achieve similar successes as before in their programs and even more student will benefit from financial awareness, as there are „no borders” in financial culture development and in this cooperation.