Get Lifted!

The purpose of the Get Lifted Trainings is to bring financial education and knowledge to the community. “I want the community to know that working really hard to make money doesn’t always bring you wealth. There are many other ways to build wealth, like budgeting, and it will make things much easier.” said Moo Moo Paw Htoo, a KOM staff member who is leading a set of the classes.

In the classes we talk about budgeting for savings, how to manage money, building credit, managing debt, the difference between banks and credit unions, buying a car and a house, and much more!

During class, the participants ask many questions, especially relating to paying bills, paying off loans, and credit.

Two of our KOM staff are leading the trainings, Moo Moo Paw Htoo and Chrit Hen, as well as one volunteer, Aye Aye Aung. The classes are 2 hours long and are given mostly in Karen. Moo Moo prepared a PowerPoint presentation for her classes, and directly translated a few of the topical terms into Karen. She said the information is so complicated that it would take a very long time to translate every term into Karen, so instead they go over some English terms and then explain the concepts in detail in Karen.

So far, about 85 people have participated in KOM’s Get Lifted classes. If you haven’t yet, there is still opportunity to join in on a class! Just contact Moo Moo Paw Htoo or Chrit Hen. The target audience is East Side residents, but everyone is welcome.

“My favorite thing to talk about is savings. I want others to realize that sometimes we buy things we want, but don’t need. We just need to get into a habit of saving and we can still have regular days, eat what we want and buy things here and there, but save at the same time. It will be much better for our future.” explains Moo Moo Paw Htoo.

The Get Lifted trainings are made possible through a partnership with Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota with funding from the Wells Fargo Foundation.