They count, though they can't read

摘要

"One day, the leader of a wom-en's group in a village in Ghana met the manager of the local bank who explained her group had an outstanding debt of 90 000 cedi (about US$80) on their loan with the bank. The woman looked surprised and responded that asfar as she remembered, they had completed the repayments. The manager insisted and asked the woman to pay up as soon as possible. The woman was a respected leader in the village, but she had never gone to school. However, realizing education is important, she had joined a numeracy training organized by an FAO-executed project, and she had also successfully completed the follow-up training in simple bookkeeping. In this course she had learned it is important to keep a 'credit book' when selling or buying on credit. When her group had received the bank loan, she had started a 'credit book' on their repayment. When she next met the bank manager she showed him this personal 'credit book,' which proved the group had fulfilled all repayments. In fact, the manager then realized the group had repaid too much and the bank had to reimburse them 5 000 cedi." The case history was related not long ago by the facilitator who taught the woman bookkeeping, but the story actually began almost by accident with an FAOproject for Integrated Development of Artisanal Fisheries (IDAF) in Benin in the mid-1980s.