“Children will learn a lot from this action”, says Inge Reyntjes of Day for Change. “It introduces them to the idea of micro credit and shows them how it works. And through them we reach their schools, their parents and families.” Day for Change provides the schools with a logbook, a step-by-step plan, hints about how to do business and teaching material about micro credits. The rest is up to the school kids.

In total 5700 primary schools have been invited to join the national Klasse!Actie (Class!Action) day. Last year 152 primary schools participated and together they raised Eur 57,000. This means that on average the micro credit of Eur 20 per school made an 18-fold return on investment. The Dutch minister for Development Cooperation Bert Koenders quadrupled this yield with another Eur 200,000. Day for Change is aiming for at least the same amount of participating primary schools as last year, when media coverage was huge, says Inge Reyntjes. “The difference seems to be that this year many more school classes will be joining the action. To date about one hundred schools have applied, with 186 classes.”

In 2007 the beneficiaries were microfinance institutions (mfi’s) in Ethiopia, Cameroon, the Philippines, India, Tadzjikistan, Georgia, Peru and Ecuador. These mfi’s were selected by organizations that support Day for Change: Oxfam Novib, Hivos, ICCO, Cordaid, Oikocredit, FMO, Triodos Bank and ASN Bank.

P+ webtip: Day for Change