Aflatoun International
Kirsten Theuns is currently the Director of Programmes at Aflatoun International, an organization that provides social and financial education to children and young people worldwide. Kirsten has been in this role since March 2023. Prior to their current position, they worked at Terre des hommes foundation where they held various roles including Head of Southern Europe, Head of Eastern Europe, and Country Representative. Kirsten also worked at Education for Development, both in Vietnam and in general, where they held the positions of Chair of Board and Country Representative. Additionally, they have experience as a Programme Manager at Wereldkinderen and as an Organizational Development Advisor at PBR. Kirsten has also held positions at UNDP/UNV and the Dutch Business Association Vietnam. Kirsten started their career as a Programme Officer at Cordaid.
Kirsten Theuns completed an Advanced Master's degree in Development Studies from Radboud University in 2007. Prior to this, they obtained a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Anthropology/Developmental Sociology from Leiden University in 2004.
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Aflatoun International
Empowering Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs with Social and Financial Skills for a Fairer Future Aflatoun International offers social and financial education to 10.5 million children and young people worldwide, empowering them to make positive change for a sustainable world. We empower children and young people by providing them with the tools to run their own social and financial enterprises, like our very own success story Kojo's Bikes. Our young entrepreneur decided to turn his life around with one simple idea: renting out his bike and saving the money for his education. Kojo's business has quadrupled since. He now has four bikes and plans on having bike shops all across Africa one day. There are many Kojo's out there so, in order to equip them all with the 21st-century skills, we create high-quality curricula, for different age groups. These are implemented by local partners and can be contextualised to local needs and specific circumstances, like youth employment, girls' empowerment and peacebuilding. Our educational material proves to be effective: it is one of the most well-researched life skills and financial education programmes globally and has been increasingly recognised as successful and innovative by The Brookings Institution and Harvard Graduate School of Education alike. You can get the full story on how we positively affect the next generation on www.aflatoun.org