As the group stood up and started singing, it was obvious that everyone knew the song. The song was a song about malaria which they had learned from our MT4 players distributed among the Samburu. They said it was one of their favorites and that everyone in the village now knows the song.
What is remarkable is that not everyone in the circle, or the village for that matter, had listened to the MT4 player. They had learned the song from others who had listened to the MT4 player. This is a phenomenon that we see happen every time we implement an orality project.
Our recently completed third-party evaluation of our project among the Samburu in Kenya pointed out that while a large percentage of those surveyed had listened to the MT4 player, 18% had not. Yet when they compared average percent increases over the baseline for changes in knowledge, attitudes and behavior, the increase for non-listeners was 39%! Our evaluator, Calvin Edwards and Company, concludes:
“This suggests that there is a very significant degree of secondary learning occurring within this oral culture—even those who don’t listen to the MT4 player are quite likely to learn as ideas are passed along orally.”
