For the third consecutive year, the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will tour the country offering young people a financial literacy life raft for a generation drowning in debt. The 2007 financial empowerment tour features a panel discussion with the group’s Co-Chair and music industry icon, Russell Simmons, along with hip-hop artists and financial specialists. The “Get Your Money Right” workbook will be a centerpiece of the program. It will be distributed in both English and Spanish — as well as online.
“Hip-hop is about eliminating poverty and ignorance…”
Russell Simmons emphasized. “We have found a creative and effective method of raising awareness about the importance of financial literacy. We are helping youth and young adults to fulfill their aspirations and lay a solid financial foundation for their future.”
A national poll of youth taken recently by USA Today and the National Endowment for Financial Education (NEFE) found that 30 percent of young adults polled worry frequently about their debt.
“This generation of twentysomethings is straining under the weight of college loans and other debt, a crushing load that separates it from every previous generation,” wrote USA Today’s Mindy Fetterman and Barbara Hansen in a six part series with NEFE called “Young & In Debt.”
Following the success of both the 2005 and 2006 “Get Your Money Right” national tours, The Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, along with sponsors Chrysler Financial and Anheuser-Busch, are kicking off the 2007 tour in The Granville Sawyer Auditorium at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas on March 3.
The agenda focuses on the basics of banking, repairing and understanding credit scores, asset and wealth management, vehicle financing and home ownership.
The tour will include stops in five additional cities, including April 14 in Detroit, Mich.; September 8 in Greensboro, N.C.; September 29 in Washington D.C.; October 20 in Miami, Fla. and November 3 in Atlanta, Ga.
For more information on the 2007 “Get Your Money Right” national tour, or to get a copy of the “Get Your Money Right” workbook, go to www.hsan.org.