On October 1st, and November 5th, eleven Filipino women, who successfully concluded the twelve-week online SELF-Manage standard course organised by Penso a Te APS, have graduated in Bologna and Genoa, respectively.

Two women groups, the SMARTsavers in Bologna and the Matanglawin in Genova have celebrated their achievements and the hard work of Penso a Te APS new community trainers, Dittz, Chris, Suzanne, Nonieta and Glen. Kudos to all of them!

Both graduations have been celebrated as a fiesta, a filipino cultural way with abundant food, drinks and speeches at the motto “Saving Cents, Saving Lives”! It was another great Penso a Te APS’s happening for this year moving towards its vision of success and impact as a Financial Education training organization for migrant and non-migrant women!

On 17th -18th September 2022, Penso a Te APS held their new yearly event – The Trainers’ Meet – at the CSV in Reggio Emilia. This activity has to be seen as both a yearly reflection for the training team to review the courses carried out during the year at community level, and as an opportunity for team building and bonding after the hard training work.

This year, the Trainers’ Meet event has focussed on the Banca D’Italia “Le donne Contano” or Women Count. Penso a Te APS has been asked by the Italian Central Bank to provide feedback on their Financial Education course materials aimed to increase women financial competencies in Italy. The content of the four modules of the course can be accessed through this link. 

The results of the assessment will be presented in an online event on the occasion of the Month of the Financial Education on October 28th. More details about the events can be found here.

The first funded project of Penso a Te APS has been named “LiberaMente“!

“LiberaMente – Emancipation, Financial Education and Job creation for the Inclusion of Women in Difficulty” was chosen to be funded by the CARIPARMA Foundation as part of the RFP call 2022.

The project is aimed at the socio-economic inclusion of women living in situations of fragility and vulnerability through a path of personal growth, preparatory steps to job placement and business start-up, supported by the activation of measures to facilitate reconciliation of parenting and personal needs with work.

The project, lasting 18 months, is an ambitious undertaking by Penso a Te APS. The project activities will be coordinated by our institutional associate RICREDITI– Microcredito e Finanza Etica APS.

LiberaMente, which can be translated in English as “free your mind”, targets both migrant and non-migrant women, and those living as refugees, who are often alone but with dependent children, and who are temporarily lodged in social support structures or living in a community with social workers. Women experiencing such hardship are at greater risk of psychological and social isolation, and are often subject to economic violence by their partners.

Penso a Te & RICREDITI will further rely for implementation on the collaboration with other organizations operating in the social sector in PARMA, such as the Life Aid Center (CAV), which offers listening, hospitality and support to women in difficulty; CIAC ONLUS, helping refugees and immigrants; Eidé Società Cooperativa Sociale – ONLUS, centered on innovative approaches to education; and Parma Municipality, Social Sector S.O.Fragility Unit, which promotes and coordinates a network of interventions to protect the most vulnerable.

Stay tuned on the “LiberaMente channel” for further updates!

Begin a learning journey together with Penso a te APS to improve your financial capabilities!

It was with this title and powerful images that we introduced our work as an association for the development of women’s financial capacity on the occasion of the Celebration of the 20th anniversary of Mondinsieme. The event was held on July 3rd in the Baden Powell park, where there are the headquarters of this Foundation, part of the municipality of Reggio Emilia, which is dedicated to promoting multicultural communication and organisational development of migrant communities in our town.

“Dittz”, Mercedita Centeno de Jesus, one of our most active associates and founding member of Penso a Te APS, presented the Penso a Te APS’s exhibit to the different ethnic groups and Italian families, who came in large number to attend this colourful event.

Madittz is also a painter and we took the opportunity of this event to show her artistic skills by showing one of her beautiful paintings. Dittz has described her experience at Mondinsieme in an article for the OFW Watch Italy. Make sure to read her article and find out more about the activities of this Filipino organisation. Enjoy the beautiful photos she took of this multicultural event in our city!

Penso a Te APS facilitates the first Team Building for the Northern Italy Filipino Association

The event was organized by AFWNI – the Association of Filipino Workers of Northern Italy, a well-established umbrella organization, aiming at improving communication, cooperation and coordination of the cultural activities and services launched in the last decade by various regional associations in many Northern Italy main cities.

Twenty-five representatives of various regional entities, such as the Philippine Women Association (ADF), the Philippine Association of Padua (UFAP), the Philippine Association of Vicenza (ACF), PARDSS of Treviso, the Philippine Community of Pordenone and the Philippine Association of Udine, participated in this first Team Building,

This meeting was facilitated by the Penso a Te APS training team to increase the impact of associations and services to local Filipino migrant communities, mostly women who work as domestic helpers, babysitters and carers for the elderly in support of Italian families.

The event proceedings will serve as a guide, over the next six months, for the priority actions decided by the Associations’ leadership, who discussed how to deal with the organizational, relational and partnership challenges identified during the day.

A woman’s best protection is a little money of her own !

In the month of Financial Education, on 25 October 2021, Penso a Te APS was invited to participate in the event WOMEN AND ECONOMIC VIOLENCE: Preventing and Fighting it with Financial Education. The meeting was organised by the University of Parma with the patronage of the Municipality of Parma, the National Association of Financial Consultants (ANASF) and the Association of Teachers of Economics of Intermediaries and Financial Markets and Corporate Finance (Adeimf) .

Penso a Te APS presented the SELF-Manage course and its role in the prevention of economic abuse. The core value of the course lies in its promotion of the participants’ self-esteem and self-awareness. As a result of the course, the women are better equipped to understand what needs to be done to make concrete changes to their lives thanks to the psychological and practical support of a lively community of learning.

Both the representatives of the Bank of Italy, Marilisa Guida and Cristiana Rampazzi, and Annamaria Lusardi, leader and spokesperson of the Committee for the planning and coordination of financial education activities, stressed how self-confidence is essential to allow women to reach psychological and economic independence. The SELF-Manage course of Penso a Te APS stands out from the other programs thanks to its path towards building a community. Participants make their personal and financial ‘journey’ as part of a group built on trust, exchange and mutual support.

You cannot teach others how to swim if you do not know how

After two successful standard training courses in Personal Well-being and Financial Education to empower migrant women, promote self-awareness and socio-financial inclusion, Penso a Te APS has launched its first training course for trainers.

Six Filipino women, who had taken the standard course by Penso a Te APS, are now the first trainees. They are honing their skills to be able to return to their communities and lead courses. More details about the Training of Trainers course can be found in this article by Dittz Centeno De Jesus, journalist and founding member of Penso a Te APS, and one of the trainees.

Smiles all around!

Congratulations to the first graduates of the Standard course by Penso a Te! Although the ceremony for the first 12 Filipino women that completed the course in February 2021 was held virtually, the excitement was no less contagious.

On June 19, 2021, a second group of 9 Filipino women graduated after successfully finishing the course between March and June. Finally, with the extraordinary participation of the first graduates, it was possible to celebrate all participants. Respecting Covid anti-contagion security protocols and equipped with green pass, our graduates shared smiles, applause, songs and dances. As a gift, they received a coin-counting piggy bank with a digital display as a symbol of the steps required to finance their first savings projects.

Penso a Te APS goes International !! 🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭🇵🇭

Penso a Te APS has participated to the 2nd International Conference on Governance & Development held online on 23-25th March 2021 organized by the University of the Philippines Los Banos (UPLB), in spite of the raging COVID-19 pandemic.

The president, Dr Manuela Prandini 🧑🏼‍🎓 presented 🧑🏼‍🎓 the methodology and the evaluation of our first 2020-2021 Standard course in Italy for a group of 12 Filipinas working in Italy. The paper titled: “The effectiveness of Hybrid Micro-Learning for Personal Financial Education of Filipino Women Migrants in Italy”, was delivered through video.

We stand tall and proud of the achievement of our Association. Kudos to our president! 👏👏👏👏👏

The presentation was very well received, and for those interested, the full conference presentation can be viewed here.

Two groups of women e-meet experts in personal finance and financial advisors for the first time!

Meeting the Experts is going to be a recurrent online event for those women who have concluded the SELF-Manage standard courses by Penso a Te APS, a micro-learning course in Personal Well-being and Management of Personal Finance .

The pioneering groups, the Pacesetters from Bologna and the Lighthouse from Genoa, will meet Italian and Filipino experts in personal finance.

New members of the association will meet and discuss virtually about some of the most complex topics dealt during the Penso a Te APS micro-learning course, such as investments, insurance policies and mortgages for property ownership in Italy.

We are looking forward to this exchange on personal and financial management issues that matter to all women, especially the large community of Filipinas working relentlessly as domestic workers in Italian families and offering their essential caring services with children and the elderlies.