Money & Financial Project | the-amplified-hope

IN THE BLACK PROJECT

Money & Financial Skills Project

The aim of the project is to provide financial literacy workshops/seminars to the Black & Ethnic Minority Community in Glasgow, South & North Lanarkshire. IN THE BLACK PROJECT is a money and financial literacy initiatives conceived to provide evening and weekend early intervention community based financial inclusions sessions to those most at risk and hard-to reached community. The The driving force behind the project is the prevention or relief of poverty through quality and sound educational resource which is one of our cardinal vision.

The project is designed to tackle economic and financial issues headlong at the grassroots level, identified as the root cause of family break-up arising from divorce, instability, depressive behaviour, poverty and crime in the community. Hope Amplified recognises the importance of building financial capability in the young and adult population and thus, provides the opportunities for the communities to adopt a more cohesive, planned and co-ordinated approach to financial education.

Whitlawburn was named in a recent report as one of the top 10 per cent most deprived areas in Scotland. According to the National Office of Statistics around eighty per cent of the population were on Jobseekers Allowance in March, 2013, more than double the UK average (Rutherglen Reformer). The local MP, Tom Greatrex equally suggested that on all the neighbourhood statistics available,Whitlawburn is among the most economically deprived neighbourhood in Scotland. The other two zones identified are Castlemilk/Carmunock with recent ranking of 920 in the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation; Ferhill/Cathkin with 686 Ranking on the SIMD table.

End Child Poverty (ECP) research suggests that its expensive to be poor; lower-income families in the UK are more likely to pay higher prices for basic utilities such as gas and electricity; prepayment meters render costs prohibitively high; not everyone has access to the internet to check utility saving websites. There is a growing dependency on high money-lenders and mail order catalogues, and very few know what a credit union is or does. The extra costs of acquiring credit and purchasing goods and service can amount to a 'poverty premium' of £1,000 or more per year. The poverty risks also tend to be higher for ethnic minority community. Those from Black and minority ethnic communities are more likely to be unemployed or living in income poverty than the wider population. Many are also socially marginalised because they lack the confidence and the right integrative approach to community immersion process.

The Runneymede Trust suggests that many people from the ethnic minority backgrounds have serious money issues and a pressing need for money guidance but very little have access to it. Their findings recommends the employment of BME Money Guidance Advisors in order to make marginalized people more able and confident to take up support and improve their situation. The report also recommends greater engagement with the Black & Minority Ethnic (BME) organisations serving often poor and marginalized BME communities, in order to help people access such advice and support. The project will be located in three zones identified as 'Acute Poverty Zones' requiring immediate actions.

It offers participants an intensive 40 weeks workshops covering topics such as budgeting, savings and banking. This is complemented by three whole-family sessions looking at advertising and the difference between needs and wants. The five (5) basic aspect of IN THE BLACK PROJECT as a financial education initiatives are predicated on the following:

Financial Understanding: Having the confidence to deal confidently with every financial issues. Making informed decisions and choices about personal finances
Financial Competence: This is the ability to apply knowledge and understanding of financial matters across a range of contexts, using ICT where appropriate.
Financial Responsibility: Having a caring and responsible disposition with regard to the use of money/resources. Include budgeting wisely and planning for the future.
Financial Enterprise: It involves making decisions based on informed thoughts, so that the average vulnerable households (parents, children and young adults) can contribute effectively to the development of Scotland`s wealth.
Financial Mentoring: This is where householders who have successfully accomplished IN THE BLACK PROJECT engaging the local community as experts to facilitate the intensive skills and knowledge exchange within the BME community.

We run a range of workshops including

Workshops for Parents

Our workshops for parents are run over seven 2 hour sessions. Six of these are within parents, and the seventh is with the whole family. The parents` sessions are fun and relaxed, covering a range of topics to help reduce stress and make lasting changes, such as:

Money basics of budgeting, saving money, credit and debt
Improving communication
Teaching children about money and values
Coping with consumer culture

Workshops for Families

The family session brings parents and children together for hands on, innovative learning activities, to get them talking about money.

Family Learning Sessions.

These are run as sets of three learning workshops, designed to give families time to enjoy learning together and improve communication around money.

We cover topics such as savings, differentiating between wants and needs (Needs versus Wants), why do organization advertise both on radio and TV and avoiding the pitfall of advertisement.