Publication Date
June 2009Author(s)
Janneke Ratcliffe, Jonathan Spader, Jorge Montoya, Peter SkillernNuestro Barrio telenovela, a 13-episode soap opera targeted to Latino immigrants, contains financial literacy content designed to educate Latino immigrants about financial services.
The Community Reinvestment Association of North Carolina (now known as Reinvestment Partners), a community-based advocacy organization, is pioneering a creative use of media to communicate social messages. From the vantage point of Peter Skillern, CRA-NC’s executive director, the recent revolution in communication technologies creates new opportunities for small organizations to communicate their messages broadly, including financial-education messages. Nuestro Barrio, CRA-NC’s most recent project, is a case in point.
The Nuestro Barrio telenovela, a 13-episode soap opera targeted to Latino immigrants, first aired on the WB network in North Carolina, making it the first Spanish-language show to air on an English network in the United States.
What is unique about Nuestro Barrio is not only that it was written and produced by CRA-NC (and not Univision or Telemundo), but also that it contains financial literacy content designed to educate Latino immigrants about financial services.
