Newcomers to Canada from Ukraine are bringing more than just hopes and dreams — they’re also sharing homegrown tools to help build brighter financial futures.
Among them is Life Capital, a board game born in post-Soviet Ukraine that’s now making its Canadian debut, aiming to teach financial literacy through play while inspiring confidence and community among new arrivals.
Everyone knows the Parker Brothers game, Monopoly.
Many of its concepts remain true to Elizabeth Magie’s “The Landlord’s Game” which she originated in 1903. When her 1924 patent expired, the idea was stolen by Charles Darrow, who sold a modified version to Parker Brothers in 1935.
The escapism and fantasies of wealth it provided made it a favourite during the Great Depression.
In 1996 a rival board game, “Cashflow” was marketed by Robert Kiyosaki as a hands-on interactive way to teach the acquisition of wealth.
Now get ready for a new-to-Canada game about to steal your imagination: “Life Capital”, which emerged in post-Soviet Ukraine. Financial literacy was not a thing under Communism, where it was the State that was portrayed as a benevolent provider.
That’s Carleton Place resident Olga Ialovenko, who tells us a team of enterprising Ukrainians decided to raise their nation’s level of literacy, with much success, by developing Financial Literacy Clubs around the Life Capital venture.
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Olga’s nation sparked the fifth wave of of Ukrainian emigration to Canada- and, when Ialovenko made her way here with possessions in a backpack, she made certain her well-worn green box containing her personal copy of Life Capital was one of the possessions that came with her.
Once here in Canada, Olga used the playing of Life Capital amongst her fellow émigrés as a method of helping them adjust to their new land. She organized a Tournament on Financial Literacy, and invited her Canadian acquaintances.
Ialovenko undertook the translation.
The proverbial green box began shipping on October 20.
Olga’s been here three years now, and has seen student cashiers have difficulty making proper change, let alone conceptualizing the payouts from interest rates and it struck her “Life Capital” could have similar successes in English-speaking North America.
She’s planning to organize the first English-speaking Financial Literacy tournament but she’ll begin with a demonstration.
Ialovenko is eager to see how Life Capital is received in Canada.
Olga maintains Life Capital is more than a game, it’s a method of self-assessment.
She says even in a war zone there’s positive proof that Life Capital is effecting an attitude adjustment.
Recently, the first versions shipped from war-torn Ukraine to Canada, where Olga now plans tutorials to test its effectiveness in encouraging financial literacy in this country.
(Written by: Rick Stow)
