HUNDREDS OF BLACK WOMEN TO RECEIVE GUARANTEED INCOME UNDER NEW GEORGIA PROGRAM
The state of Georgia has planned an initiative to improve the financial stability of black women. The new income program guarantees to provide over 600 black women a figure of eight hundred and fifty dollars per month. The financial assistance will be provided to the qualifying black women for two years.
In Her Hands, an initiative of the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund and GiveDirectly is scheduled to start at the beginning of 2022. In Her Hands aims to distribute over 13 million US Dollars to black women to eliminate the racial health gap.
The GRO Fund initially targeted 200 black women in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. A pilot-based income program was in the pipeline, represented by City Council Member Amir Farokhi. He highlighted how a famous Old Fourth Ward native, Martin Luther King Junior, once called for a guaranteed income program. The program aims to transform the lives and the mental health of these oppressed black women to lead confident lives.
There will be no boundaries for the participants, which would allow them to spend the received amount where they like. They would be free to spend the money on the necessities or invest it for further gains. The funds first round will be given to the neighborhood of the worst mental health, income inequality, etc. Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward has been expected to receive the fund’s first round.
The executive director of the GRO Fund, Hope Wollensack, expressed that this initiative would be a step towards improving an equitable and just society.
Similar ventures have been proved successful in various countries such as India and Kenya. Other US states, including Mississippi, California, and Stockton, are seeking to launch similar programs.
