They Built the Bridge - Will You Cross It?

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Thank you to those to those who donated in the past.

“Reading is a bridge from misery to hope.”

This quote is emblazoned across the top of the Literacy & Development Through Partnership (LDP) home page, but it would be a mistake to take it as an invitation to view the literacy work of LDP in salvific, colonial terms. To say that here, again, is an organization stepping into someone else’s culture and offering to build a bridge from their misery to our hope.

LDP is not an outside organization. It is a group of Dagomba people dedicated to, in their own words, “Breaking the vicious cycle of poverty through providing the Dagomba with access to Literacy and a high standard of basic education.” Of the seventeen paid staff and fifty volunteers, only one, Joke Yakubu de Lange, is an ex-patriot (from the Netherlands). And not only has Joke been involved in the work that LDP does in Ghana for over two decades, but she also married into the community and became a part of it.

What is now Literacy & Development Through Partnership began as the Dagbani Literacy Project, all the way back in 1985 under the umbrella of the Ghana Institute of Linguistics, Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT). There are over one million Dagomba people in northern Ghana, and (as is often the case with the economically disadvantaged) literacy in their (or any) language is quite low—roughly eighty percent of the adults cannot read or write. Initially, the organization worked with adult literacy, but in 2012 shifted to focus more on children’s literacy, where community interest was strongest.

This video, which we’ve shared here before, provides an excellent overview of where LDP is today:

With a main office in the Tamale (Ghana’s third-largest city) and two satellite offices, LDP has grown and adapted to meet the needs of a population that is spread over a significant geographical area.

It is, again, an organization of Dagomba people for Dagomba people, which is why it fits so comfortably into SIL LEAD’s vision and purpose—to help local, community-based organizations use their own language to improve their quality of life.

If it’s so local, though, then why are we involved at all?

The simple answer is that now that this Dagomba organization has built a bridge from the challenges faced by their community to the hope that they have for their future, they have extended an invitation to us to walk across that bridge and join them in their work.

Initially, this invitation was to meet LDP’s structural need for a partner to process U.S.-based donations to their organization. In the year that we have been working with them, SIL LEAD has also had the opportunity to connect LDP with some of our network of expert linguists, and to offer advice and assistance as they apply for grants for the continued funding of their work.

This last aspect is a key to their continued success in changing the lives of Dagbani speakers across northern Ghana. LDP is not a multinational organization with deep pockets. It is a small, local organization serving a community comprised largely of subsistence farmers. Those who do learn to read and write often end up migrating out of their rural areas and into the city.

While those who remain want expanded opportunities for their children, one might ask if it is in their best interest to create those opportunities for their children if the net result is oftena migration away from their community and way of life.

There is no simple answer to this question.

But the simple truth remains that illiteracy creates a significant disadvantage for these people, making them vulnerable to manipulation and abuse by others. Furthermore, if education is done correctly—which is to say that it is built on a foundation of mother- tongue literacy—then it gives these disadvantaged people a fighting chance.

In promoting the mother tongue, you promote the culture and traditions of the community. You add value to the culture, which includes farming.

Ghana has recently introduced free basic universal education and high school on a national level. This has sent an enormously expanded number of children trooping into schools. Unfortunately, the infrastructure is not yet widespread or sufficient for effective mother- tongue education, which has been proven to be the most effective bridge between children of minority language groups and the culture at large.

These Dagomba people are choosing to build that bridge themselves.

LDP Facilitators

The large number of LDP’s community volunteers attests to the value that they place on this work. But resources are always limited and transient for this sort of organization. As a result, they are limited in their ability to make more ambitious, longer-term plans. They are forced, instead, to continue on a more conservative trajectory. It is a trajectory that consistently brings good education to children who need it, but there is so much more that could be done.

Literacy & Development through Partnership is a local, community-based organization that is already in place—already doing the good work. Motivated by their Christian faith, they nonetheless call on a network of Muslim volunteers who understand the value of what they are doing.

Want to make a big difference in a small, beautiful way?

Why not join us in crossing the bridge that the Dagomba people have built? First, learn about their beautiful Dagbani language and the strong community and culture they maintain. Then, consider becoming a financial partner of LDP, giving them the resources they need to help break the cycle of poverty, while at the same time preserving their community and way of life.