New York – The immigrant-rights group Tepeyac is offering to foreign residents and their children a course on managing domestic finances in an effort to help them break the cycle of poverty and exclusion.
Tepeyac cites figures showing that Mexicans constitute New York’s poorest immigrant contingent, with a median per capita income of just $10,213 a year.
The organization also refers to a Columbia University study that lists some familiar reasons for this state of affairs. Immigrants tend to have low-paying jobs and little education, are unfamiliar with banks and find it difficult to buy their own homes or start businesses.
But things don’t have to remain that way, according to Teresa Garcia, the finance director for Asociacion Tepeyac.
Already busy providing a range of social services to the Big Apple’s Mexican community, Tepeyac has launched a program aimed at instilling in immigrant children the habit of saving.
“Show Me the Money” is an interactive seven-week course that includes instruction in math, social studies and critical thinking along with educational games intended to build self-esteem and encourage the youngsters to aspire to a better future.
“We need to attack poverty through saving and studying,” Garcia said at the graduation ceremony for the first 25 kids to complete the program.
The same event, at a bank branch in Queens, saw the presentation by Citigroup of a check for $25,000 to help Tepeyac pay its instructors. The banking giant also supplied a model for the course, which the organization adapted for its own circumstances.
Graduates of the program learned how to distinguish between necessities and desires in managing limited funds.
Receiving special recognition at the ceremony were the three top savers in the class: Christopher Ochoa, Daisy Ramos and Brenda Jimenez.
Christopher, 8, managed to amass $360 and plans to open a bank account. The aspiring policeman earned money doing household chores and picked up coins on the street, and it was much the same story for Brenda, who had $70 to show for her efforts.
“I learned that I need money to live, that I can earn money to buy the things I need,” said the 7-year-old, accompanied by mother Emilia Calixto, who cleans houses and looks after other people’s children to supplement the earnings of her husband, a construction worker.
Calixto told EFE that the course motivated her daughter “to try to do things to make money,” adding that Brenda was even able to offer her parents some useful tips on economizing.
Daisy, 7, learned that she can spend all her money on sweets. “With the money I saved I’m going to buy clothes for my mom and uncles, and also candy,” the youngster said, displaying the $47 she accumulated.
