Project: Peer Financial Educators Program
Grantee: SAJE (Strategic Actions for a Just Economy)
Grant Year: 2001
Award duration/amount: 3 years, $50,000 total

A major goal of SAJE it to help working class women move out of expensive “fringe banking” (check cashers, pawnshops, etc.) and move into the financial mainstream.  When Los Angeles county stopped mailing welfare checks, requiring women to pick them up at designated check cashing centers, SAJE responded to the issue by negotiated the nation’s first welfare-to-work bank account with Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan in the country.  This direct deposit bank account now serves over 1,000 women in LA county.  Through a collaboration between SAJE, the Consumers Union and the CA Bankers Association, legislation was passed that requires all counties in California to offer direct deposit (on welfare checks) by the end of 2001.  To ensure that this option will be taken advantage of by women on welfare across the state, SAJE launched its peer-educator program.

In the peer-educator program, welfare-to-work participants are trained as financial peer educators.  These leaders offer "Economic Survival" training to engage women in changing their economic habits, set up their first bank accounts, and move out of the expensive fringe banking sector.  SAJE is currently working to ensure the new direct-deposit law translates into new financial opportunities for poor women by offering workshops in many California counties.

3GF's three-year $50,000 grant is helping SAJE to develop and document its financial literacy programs.

For more information on this project visit www.saje.net, call (323) 732-9961, fax (323) 733-8831, or write to the following address: