The Georgia Consumer Financial Education Project is a statewide initiative to educate and empower Georgia consumers to successfully manage basic retail bank accounts. Through a series of “train-the-trainer” workshops across the state, Georgia Watch provided participants with the tools and resources they need to educate vulnerable, under-banked populations in their communities. By working with partners across the state, we aim to reach thousands of Georgia consumers with information on how to maintain a bank account, manage personal finances, and avoid costly overdraft fees.
Our free financial literacy “train-the-trainer” workshops were conducted in May and June of 2017. Georgia Watch is excited to have 139 trained volunteers around the state ready to empower their clients and communities! Below are the locations where the trainings took place.
- Southwest Atlanta 5/17
- Gainesville 5/18
- Macon 5/22
- Rome 5/23
- Brunswick 5/25
- Albany 6/1
- Smyrna 6/6
Participants who successfully completed the training are asked to conduct six workshops over an 18-month period in their communities. Georgia Watch will keep in touch with our trained participants over the next year and a half to build a body of knowledge on managing finances, maintaining bank accounts, and avoiding predatory high-cost financial products. We will provide presentation materials, resources and support to volunteers to help them make their community workshops a great success.
During the course of this project, Georgia Watch will develop three (3) modules to add to the existing four (4) modules taught during our train-the-trainer workshops this spring. These modules will be taught to our trainers during free, online or by-phone webinars. All materials will be sent to our trainers after the webinars. The first webinar will take place on September 27th from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. and will cover “Debt and Debt Collection”. To RSVP for this webinar, please click the link below.
CLICK HERE TO RSVP FOR THE “DEBT AND DEBT COLLECTION” WEBINAR ON 9/27/2017 FROM 12-1 PM
For more information or if you have any questions, please call Trey Cason at (404) 525-1085 or email tcason@georgiawatch.org.
Georgia is currently the third least-banked state in the United States with many of our residents utilizing expensive alternative financial services (check cashing, money orders, prepaid cards, title lending, etc.) rather than or in addition to traditional banking services. As part of this two-year, statewide education program to empower low income consumers to successfully manage basic bank accounts, we are including Southwest Atlanta as a particular focus area. We will coordinate with existing service providers in the Atlanta area and create a financial education calendar of classes for the community. Through this highly focused project area, we will be able to closely monitor and report on the effectiveness of the outreach and education strategies and tools used to meaningfully engage consumers in making lasting behavior change.
Georgia Watch is grateful for the financial support from the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment and the Annie E. Casey Foundation that made this important work on behalf of Georgia consumers possible.
