"Financial Independence for Women", a program of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation and the Women's Rights Centre, was among the 10 best practices honored in the competition "Together We Are Building Social Capital". Its aim is to highlight the benefits of cooperation between business and the NGO sector.
The fact that one of our practices was among the 10 laureates of this competition is for us a signal that we are going in the right direction, says Krzysztof Kaczmar, President of The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation. Our program "Financial Independence for Women", honored in the competition, is important mainly for its strategic goal: to criminalize economic violence and to introduce this concept into the Polish Criminal Code.
The competition "Together We Are Building Social Capital" is part of a project being carried out by the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan and Deloitte as a platform for collaboration between the NGO sector and business. Besides the 10 best practices, 26 projects were also honored, including as many as six coordinated by The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation.
"Financial Independence for Women" is a program that has been jointly run by The Citi Handlowy Leopold Kronenberg Foundation and the Women's Rights Centre since 2011. Its aim is to support victims of economic violence and to increase their chances of getting out of abusive relationships. A pilot version of the program was conducted in 2011-2012. During this pilot run, women who notified the Women's Rights Centre were given psychological and legal assistance, and also workshops were conducted on financial education. 300 women took part in coaching sessions and in financial and social consultations. A special website was launched devoted to the issue of economic violence http://www.finanse.cpk.org.pl/. The site has tools like: easy-to-use calculators enabling women to manage a household budget and current expenditures, an online reading room (allowing use of materials without the need to download them and leave traces on the computer), a modern FAQ database, online counseling, as well as numerous thematic polls and surveys. In September 2012 the Foundation decided to continue the program and launched the first edition.
The competition "Together We Are Building Social Capital" is part of a project being carried out by the Polish Confederation of Private Employers Lewiatan and Deloitte as a platform for collaboration between the NGO sector and business. The organizer of the competition is the Duende Foundation.
