05 Nov 2004 - In the United States, millions of young people go off to college or enter the work world with little or no understanding of important financial issues such credit and personal budgeting. As a result, they often get into serious trouble with credit card debt and even bankruptcy.
If financial literacy is such a problem for American teenagers, you can imagine how challenging it can seem to a refugee starting over in this country. Recognizing this challenge, IRC approached the American Express Foundation for support in 2003 and the Pathways to Financial Freedom (PFF) project was created.
PFF offers financial literacy education to newly arriving refugees designed to help them to achieve economic success in their new home. All new arrivals receive a basic introduction to American financial practices as part of their initial orientation, and are required to attend 5 workshops during their 8-month period of intensive case management.
Using AMEX-approved curriculum, workshops cover subjects such as personal budgeting, consumer credit, and wealth creation through savings plans such as 401K, Roth IRA and 529 educational savings accounts.
Refugees enrolled in existing IRC programs, such as the Microenterprise Program (a small business development project) and the Individual Development Accounts Program (a matched savings project), First Things First (a mother/pre-schooler program) and Students Plus (an after-school program for refugee youth) receive targeted financial education designed to augment their existing program curricula.
To make the resources more accessible, the IRC has translated all curricula and materials into the most common refugee languages: Somali, Arabic and Vietnamese. With the continued support of the American Express Foundation, the IRC is translating the materials into additional languages and will distribute the curricula and teachers’ guides throughout the IRC domestic resettlement network.
