The ‘Calendars and Cash’ project in Himalayan Pakistan is now complete. The use of an OIM solution combining savings group records and a mother-and-child health calendar supported a large increase in the ability to read and write 4-5 digit ordinal numbers and – unexpectedly – an increase in personal mobility for many participating women. The…
My Oral Village launches a project (‘Oral Financial Diaries in Bangladesh’) funded by The Gojo Foundation, with implementing partners the Hrishipara Daily Diaries Project and Microsave Consulting. Can poor adults learn how to keep personal and confidential financial diaries, even without literacy? Such skills can be critical to escaping povety. We will strive to design…
Financial inclusion in the Anthropocene by Brett Matthews was published in the Fletcher Forum of Global Affairs. The opinion piece considers the potentially critical role that oral cultures can play in helping the human species adapt to and alleviate human-induced climate change, and the ways in which the practice of financial inclusion can support this…
Today the My Oral Village community warmly welcomes Xavier DeBane to the board of directors. Xavier is well-suited for the new role. Currently Vice-President of Enterprise Strategy and Transformation at ManuLife Financial, his previous experience includes stints as a foreign aid officer in Vietnam and a project leader at the Boston Consulting Group in Mumbai….
Today My Oral Village signed a contract with the University of Alberta to develop an OIM solution for savings groups in the Himalayan villages of Skardu and Kharmang districts, in northern Pakistan. With financing from Global Affairs Canada’s Fund for Innovation and Transformation, Dr. Salima Meherali of U of A’s Nursing Faculty is investigating the…
Today the founder and executive director of My Oral Village presented the OIM solution designed for Sierra Leone’s credit unions at the AGM of the Irish League of Credit Unions in Belfast, on invitation from the ILCU Foundation.
Today My Oral Village signed a contract with the Co-operative Housing Federation (doing business as ‘Global Communities’) to provide an OIM solution for savings groups in use among agro-pastoralist women in South Omo, Ethiopia. The solution will include oralization of savings group records, as well as the development of a learning platform to support rapid…
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) today announced a grant to Dr. Daniel Ansari at Western University to study the impact of an OIM solution on numerical cognition in Sierra Leone. The team includes Dr. Hans-Christoph Nuerk at the University of Tubingen, and Brett Matthews of My Oral Village, as principal…
MOVE and BOMA completed a final impact survey of our OIM solution for microentrepreneurs in Marsabit, Kenya. Among 150 respondents who took both baseline and endline tests, 46% could read and understand the meaning of a 4-digit number – up from 21% at baseline. Using the OIM ‘currency frame’ that was integrated into the records,…
ILCUF evaluation reveals that the percent of participants able to read a 3-digit currency number rose from 4% – 87% during their 4-month pilot of an OIM solution.
Field work was completed on an internal evaluation by the Irish League of Credit Unions on the OIM solution developed by MOVE for ILCUF’s ‘Graduation Microfinance Program’.
At the annual general meeting of My Oral Village, outgoing board chair Heather Broughton was thanked by staff and board for her 9 years of exemplary service to the realization of our vision.