By Daxim Lucas

Female entrepreneurs and college students want to become entrepreneurs but lack basic business know-how.

Findings of a survey conducted by the Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP)—a partnership of the Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank—indicate that there is low awareness of finance and money management among the Filipino women surveyed.

Over 78 percent of those surveyed reported they had not been exposed to a formal business management or entrepreneurship course in college.

In line with its mission to teach and inspire more female students to take on the torch of entrepreneurship, WEP recently launched the “Funance” game, an interactive teaching tool designed to help bridge the finance knowledge gap in the country.

“Even before they start studying finance, most students are already hesitant to do so,” said Let’s Go Foundation program manager Carlo Calimon. “Funance is a fun way to learn and remember important concepts.”

Calimon said Funance was designed to encourage students not to fear finance.

“Funance shows that there’s an easier way to teach and learn Finance,” he said. “The game is very hands-on and engages students in a fun and entertaining way to make the learning meaningful and relevant for students.”

Funance is a comprehensive series of videos, board games and case studies consisting of three core components:

1) “Definition of Terms,” which guides players through balance sheets and income statements.

2) “Building a Case,” which instructs players on how to develop a balance sheet and income statement based on transactional cards.

3) “Cash Flow,” a board game that teaches cash management.

Funance started out as concept developed by Prof. Maurino Bolante, a finance professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), together with Prof. Jay Bernardo, the founder of Let’s Go Foundation. Calimon also added significant inputs in the development of the game.

Funance started out as concept developed by Prof. Maurino Bolante, a finance professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), together with Prof. Jay Bernardo, the founder of Let’s Go Foundation. Calimon also added significant inputs in the development of the game.

Calimon said he believed women could easily succeed in business if empowered to make the right decisions, and the best way to empower them would be to educate them on the fundamentals of business.

"We will start targeting college students first,” he said. “Over the long term, WEP will expand to the high school level, then the out-of-school youth, then the older sector.”

Recognizing the need to train women on the fundamentals of business even before they graduate from college, Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank joined forces to form the WEP in 2006 which works to create new and innovative ways to teach and inspire more female students to take on the torch of entrepreneurship.

The launch of Funance reinforces WEP’s commitment to the development of women entrepreneurs across various segments and age groups in the country.

Funance will be rolled out in pilot schools starting in June, with a plan to extend its reach to more schools in the months after that. There are also plans to make it available to NGOs, such as cooperatives, who want to teach women’s groups the basics of finance.

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