The
first have-nots. Material have-nots? Auto rickshaw drivers in India.
Trapped in a permanent cycle of debt at the hands of usurers, much of
their income merely pays interest on their loans. Due to poor financial
literacy many aren’t integrated into the larger economy, lacking contact
or accounts with regular banks, remaining ignorant and suspicious of
such entities, and lacking requisite paperwork that the formal banking
bureaucracy typically demands.
The second have-nots. Spiritual have-nots? Elderly educated Indian middle-class, quickly becoming irrelevant in a rapidly fast-forwarding society. Increasingly living longer, this growing group's value remains largely untapped and ignored. Boom in Florida-style retirement communities is spreading apace with the collapse of the traditional joint family system. Self-imposed or not, is such ghetto-ization the only option? Is it inevitable or avoidable?
Couldn’t healthy, retired people in a given neighborhood spend some of their midday hours, a few times a week, educating others? In particular, what if a dedicated cadre of retired folk taught the basics of financial literacy to their neighborhood auto rickshaw drivers? How? Typically auto rickshaw drivers have a cyclical workday: very busy during office rush hours in mornings and evenings, fairly long period of lull in the afternoons. Auto rickshaw drivers typically spend their midday lull periods in the same neighborhoods near large bus stops. Energize their midday lulls with informal teaching sessions? Not just teach but also help initiate them into the formal banking system, i.e. help fill out forms, help get necessary identification papers and ultimately bank accounts? Isn't this do-able? After all, the two groups likely know each other, the former engaging the services of the latter for their travels across town.
While I have this idea, I have no idea how to get it started. I don’t know anything about development of financial curriculum. Also, I live in the US, not in India. I believe this idea may fare better at the hands of people better versed in these matters. Therefore, I’m posting this idea on this forum in the hope of reaching people or entities in India who have requisite expertise in development of adult financial literacy curricula, and who may be interested and competent in actualizing this idea. Small pilot programs in one or more urban neighborhoods would be my inkling.
My hope is two-fold. One, that participating in such an adult financial literacy program would help free auto rickshaw drivers from lifelong indebtedness at the hands of unscrupulous usurers and better integrate them into the formal economy. Two, seeing elderly teach financial literacy to the disadvantaged within their community could be a poignant and compelling reminder to a given community of the untapped and essential value of the elders living amongst them. If such an endeavor and its ilk (teaching neighborhood slum children, for e.g.) could take off and spread, maybe it would in some small way help stave off unnecessary and tragic ghetto-ization of the elderly in India?
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Could-we-make-haves-by-bringing-together-two-have-nots-An-Indian-take-on-Each-One-Teach-One
The second have-nots. Spiritual have-nots? Elderly educated Indian middle-class, quickly becoming irrelevant in a rapidly fast-forwarding society. Increasingly living longer, this growing group's value remains largely untapped and ignored. Boom in Florida-style retirement communities is spreading apace with the collapse of the traditional joint family system. Self-imposed or not, is such ghetto-ization the only option? Is it inevitable or avoidable?
Couldn’t healthy, retired people in a given neighborhood spend some of their midday hours, a few times a week, educating others? In particular, what if a dedicated cadre of retired folk taught the basics of financial literacy to their neighborhood auto rickshaw drivers? How? Typically auto rickshaw drivers have a cyclical workday: very busy during office rush hours in mornings and evenings, fairly long period of lull in the afternoons. Auto rickshaw drivers typically spend their midday lull periods in the same neighborhoods near large bus stops. Energize their midday lulls with informal teaching sessions? Not just teach but also help initiate them into the formal banking system, i.e. help fill out forms, help get necessary identification papers and ultimately bank accounts? Isn't this do-able? After all, the two groups likely know each other, the former engaging the services of the latter for their travels across town.
While I have this idea, I have no idea how to get it started. I don’t know anything about development of financial curriculum. Also, I live in the US, not in India. I believe this idea may fare better at the hands of people better versed in these matters. Therefore, I’m posting this idea on this forum in the hope of reaching people or entities in India who have requisite expertise in development of adult financial literacy curricula, and who may be interested and competent in actualizing this idea. Small pilot programs in one or more urban neighborhoods would be my inkling.
My hope is two-fold. One, that participating in such an adult financial literacy program would help free auto rickshaw drivers from lifelong indebtedness at the hands of unscrupulous usurers and better integrate them into the formal economy. Two, seeing elderly teach financial literacy to the disadvantaged within their community could be a poignant and compelling reminder to a given community of the untapped and essential value of the elders living amongst them. If such an endeavor and its ilk (teaching neighborhood slum children, for e.g.) could take off and spread, maybe it would in some small way help stave off unnecessary and tragic ghetto-ization of the elderly in India?
https://tirumalaikamala.quora.com/Could-we-make-haves-by-bringing-together-two-have-nots-An-Indian-take-on-Each-One-Teach-One
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