Economic abuse occurs in 99 percent of domestic violence cases, and is a powerful tactic that can keep survivors in abusive relationships. From not allowing a survivor to keep a job, to keeping financial information from them, to generating debt for a survivor, economic abuse can have devastating consequences. Without assets or adequate financial literacy, survivors may be unable to afford safe housing away from the person harming them or cover the many other costs associated with leaving or having been in a violent relationship, such as child care, legal fees, and physical and mental health expenditures. Though figures vary, it’s estimated that intimate partner violence in the US costs upwards of $5 billion dollars annually.
La Casa de las Madres believes that empowering survivors means giving them the tools and resources to make the best financial decisions for themselves. We partner with Alex Nerguizian, a personal finance and wealth management expert, to facilitate a series of workshops focused on financial literacy for survivors of domestic violence. We sat down with Alex to learn more about his background, the approach he takes to his workshop series, and why he believes financial empowerment is significant for survivors.
Tell us about yourself, your work, and how you’re connected to La Casa.
My background is in banking and wealth management, and I do community development work in financial education and empowerment. I’ve been doing this work for 10 years now and started with La Casa in 2012 teaching classes in Spanish about everything from budgeting skills to credit and debt management to money mindfulness. I think that understanding the relationship we have with money and what money means to us is crucial to learning how to manage it.
What brings you to doing this work to support survivors of domestic violence?
When healing from domestic violence there is emotional work that has to happen, but the money management piece is crucial because when your finances are not where they need to be everything else can fall. Finances are more than just whatever’s in your wallet; they include public benefits, money, and any other resource you’re owning or receiving. They can affect every part of your life. Being able to grab a hold of your financial life is so important, especially in domestic violence situations.
You facilitate economic empowerment workshops for survivors. Can you tell us a little bit more about them?
I teach a three-class workshop. In the first class I talk about finance from a bird’s eye view and discuss money management and savings. The second class is about building credit, and the third one is about debt management. The classes are important for everyone because when you know how to save money you can build your assets, pay off debt, and do so many other things. The other thing with financial education is that it never ends. I really want participants to take away that even though we just spent so much time together, there will always be something to learn. Things always change.
Rather than showing up to a class and listening for an hour and a half and leaving, I like asking the group about what they’ve tried, and what they want to do. If participants are comfortable, I ask them to share their stories and experiences with money. I love to ask questions, and let the participants guide the conversation and discussions.
I also like to show participants that they know a lot more than they think they do. Their knowledge might not be in the technical terms that I’m using, but it’s the same thing. For example, when we talk about credit, I use the example of having a tab at the local grocer or mercado (market) back home. Participants connect the example from their life to the bigger concept of credit. It’s a way to give them some power back.
Being in a group setting like the workshop is powerful. Survivors see that they’re not alone, and hear other people share their ideas about what they do to manage their finances and create change for themselves.
Why do you think being financially empowered is significant for survivors?
I remember one round of the workshop I asked the group what they would change or do by the next class. The next class I asked if anyone took action -- and more than half of them did. I think that was very powerful because in finance or in anything in life, it’s not so much about what you know but what you do. Action in any form is really important. So when I checked back in and participants shared all the things they were trying and doing, I knew that real change was happening. Even for the people who didn’t make change, it’s very powerful to be in a room full of people who have, because you’ll maybe feel inspired and accountable to the rest of the group to try, too.
Being in a group setting like the workshop is powerful. Survivors see that they’re not alone, and hear other people share their ideas about what they do to manage their finances and create change for themselves.
How do you think you empower your survivors and contribute to the movement to end domestic violence?
As long as people leave the workshop with something that really touched them or led them to change their life, I know that they’ll go on to change something in their friends’ or communities’ lives, too. It’s about a ripple effect, which is something I talk a lot about with starting to save money. My approach is to start with a penny. Once you save a penny, you might save a nickel, then a dollar, then five, ten, and twenty and a hundred dollars.
The beginning of any journey is hard. People sometimes feel that the first step needs to be gigantic and glorious, when really all it needs to be is something small. It’s like saving money: the more you save, the easier saving becomes because you’ve already started to do it. When someone learns this and applies it to their life, they might teach it to someone else. That’s why I feel like when you’re empowering one person, you’re advocating all survivors, because more and more people in the community are sharing this message of empowerment. It has an exponential effect.