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Announcing the Release of Two Mam-Language Financial Literacy Videos

A sincere thank you to the partners who helped with the production of these videos:

The Mam language is a Mayan language spoken by many Guatemalan immigrants in Cottage Grove as well as elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest and the U.S. The idea for these videos stemmed from a partnership among RDI, Peggy’s Primary Connection Family Resource Center (South Lane School District), and the Bohemia Food Hub aimed at providing entrepreneurship training in Spanish in the Cottage Grove area. Through this work, we identified a gap in financial literacy resources for the Mam-speaking population.

RDI secured funding for this project, and the Family Resource Center reached out to the Mam community to identify topics of most interest. They identified that learning how to use an ATM and opening a bank account are of high interest. These videos take viewers through a step by step process for these activities, and are meant to demystify and ease the process of developing an initial relationship with banking institutions. The pandemic has further heightened interest in understanding and participating in the U.S. financial system because of some of the qualifications required to access relief funding.

Creating these videos in a foreign language in a pandemic brought a unique set of challenges. Most of the team did not speak Mam, and the pandemic meant that we shot the footage in person, but conducted all editing via Zoom. 

This project features a native Mam speaker, Marili Pablo, a shy, stay-at-home mom, who felt it very important to get this information to her community in their native language in order to help them adapt and integrate into their new lives in the U.S. She was pleased to be featured in the videos and is interested in becoming more involved in her community. 

RDI developed the material for these videos based on our Pasos al Éxito financial literacy curriculum. The material here and any mistakes are not the responsibility of our partners. 

Click here for “How to Open a Bank Account”

Click here for “How to Use an ATM”

For more information, please contact Brenda Brown at: bbrown@rdiinc.org