I never regret visiting our friends in Washington State!  In June, I traveled to Yakima to participate in the launch of washingtonlawhelp.org at the statewide Access to Justice conference.  While there, I learned of a great new development that I wanted to share with communities that are building statewide websites around the country. 

The Northwest Justice Project in Washington State has been awarded a trailblazing grant of $116,875 by the state's Attorney General's office to improve financial literacy in immigrant communities.  The funding will support the enhancement of the consumer law section of washingtonlawhelp.org including developing, publishing and marketing content focused on consumer legal issues relevant to the immigrant community.  The funding will also support NJP's organization of two regional consumer summits to develop immigrants’ networks to spread financial literacy awareness in their communities and to train social service providers on consumer issues.
   

The proposed enhancements to washingtonlawhelp.org include the development of new consumer-related publications of particular interest to immigrant communities, the translation of 30 existing consumer-related publications, including into Spanish, Russian, African and Asian languages, and a marketing campaign that will include non-English marketing materials including public service announcements for radio programs in the state.  The project will focus on credit/financial industry problems prevalent in immigrant communities including payday loans, check-cashing services, predatory lending, money wire transfers, and access to banking.

NJP expects that by working closely with the AG’s office on this project, it will further enhance the general collaboration within the state's justice community.  The AG’s support of LawHelp is a very important vote of confidence for the entire statewide website concept.  The integration of outreach, content enhancement, and translation is an important path to follow.

Since the funding for this grant comes from the Attorney General Consumer Protection Division’s cy pres funds, and since most states have similar funds, this is a very important funding model for use in other states.  Congratulations to NJP and Washington State!