Count Her In
everyone needs to
manage their finances
My Oral Village is fighting poverty in oral cultures
We Develop
Financial Tools For Illiterate and Innumerate People
Unable to read and write numbers, they cannot benefit from the security and convenience of modern financial products and services. We draw on their knowledge and capabilities to create banking, mobile money and other financial tools that they feel safe and confident using, on their own.
Latest News
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June 28, 2025
My Oral Village is pleased to share the findings from our first round of usability testing for an OIM version of GNU Taler, in Freetown,…
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May 22, 2025
After following several months of planning and field work in eight locations around Sierra Leone, My Oral Village is delighted to announce the completion of…
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January 6, 2025
We are delighted to welcome Jennifer Denomy to the Board of Directors of My Oral Village | Lighting the path out of poverty! Jennifer has…
About a billion people cannot read these numbers
Our Goal
Financial inclusion for oral people world wide. Every person in the world should be able to safely and independently use financial services.
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THE CHALLENGES
An Invisible Disability?
To a billion illiterate people, everyday items – bank machines, deposit slips and mobile wallet menus are not usable. They mean anxiety, stress and vulnerability to loss and fraud. So they avoid financial services, saving in livestock, crops, jewellery and small stocks of hidden cash, unable to function in the modern economy.
The Poverty Trap
Without being able to use a savings account, it is very hard to get out of poverty. Saving in non-cash forms is very risky due to livestock diseases, crop spoilage and fake jewelry. For families and growing children, these risks have consequences. Their children are at great risk of illiteracy too.
Our Solutions
are designed to make financal services usable.
Savings Groups, Payments, Microenterprise, Savings Accounts, Microcredit
Introducing
ORAL INFORMATION MANAGEMENT (OIM)
For digital and non digital applications:
Savings Group or Credit Union Passbooks
Microenterprise Record Keeping
Mobile Wallet Interfaces
everyone needs to
manage their finances
Our Impact
Spotlight On Our Work In Action
Micro Entrepreneurs in Rural Kenya
Usable Financial Services
My Oral Village Is Testing Our Solutions in Northern Kenya
On October 1, 2020, My Oral Village launched a 15-month project to test several of our Oral Information Management (OIM) tools among 450 women from four ethnic groups living in pastoralist communities in the arid and semi-arid lands of northern Kenya. The project “Writing a Path Out of Poverty: Testing a Cash Calculator with Extremely Poor Women in Northern Kenya” (a/k/a the ‘Write Project’) tests how our innovative OIM solutions can support the women to build sustainable livelihoods and advance gender equality.
Usable Credit Union passbooks for members in Sierra Leone
About 43% of the adult population of Sierra Leone are classified as ‘literate’ by the World Bank. As low as this ratio may seem, it is sharply lower in rural areas, and among women. Since many credit union members cannot read or write, misunderstandings and disputes easily arise, and managers and staff struggle to earn trust.