Knowing that the current system leaves the most vulnerable youth to “learn finance the hard way”, partners brought together inclusion, curriculum-design and gamification experience to create engaging board-game plus AI chatbot that turn budgeting, saving and smart spending into hands-on, culturally sensitive play for empathetic and practically useful financial education aiming to : 1) Equip marginalised 16- to 25-year-olds with life-ready financial skills, boosting their autonomy and readiness for work or entrepreneurship, 2) Provide teachers and youth workers with an open, habit-forming learning tool, filling the methodological void identified in all three countries, and 3) Tackle an EU-wide equity issue through transnational piloting, ensuring that successful practices can travel and be scaled.
Across the EU, youth from low-income or migrant families slip into debt earlier, score lower on international financial-literacy tests and say that school does not equip them to cope with everyday money decisions. In Germany only half of 15-year-olds reach the basic OECD benchmark for financial literacy; in Bulgaria 38 % of youth call such skills “crucial”, yet a third judge the information they receive as inadequate; in Ireland one in eight debt-counselling clients is under 25 and 114 000 children already grow up in poverty . Existing textbooks and “money games” do not speak the language or match the realities of those NEETs, rural learners and second-generation migrants. Existing programs are available at elite schools, ignore cultural barriers and rarely foster the daily habits that research links to employability. The EC has placed “financial and economic literacy” high on its agenda (EntreComp 3.2), calling for inclusive tools that can be reused across borders . FINEYOU is creating open, hands-on tools for empathetic and practically useful financial education in alignment with EU priorities on inclusion, employability and entrepreneurship for youth.