Do you remember what it was like to take your seat on your very first day in school, bright eyed and bushy tailed—eager to please?
Imagine, if you will, that once the teacher had gotten your class settled she had turned to you and your classmates and said, “Bonvolu malfermi viajn librojn.”
Imagine she stared at you. Expectant. Waiting…
There is a myth that a Mother Tongue (MT) speaker of a language is automatically a competent translator into their language. Of course, there are good storytellers in every language. There are people with the gift of using words well whether orally or in written form. These are the people we want as authors in their own languages…
Read MorePerhaps you’re excited for Sunday, February 21 this year because you’ve heard that it’s National Sticky Bun Day in the United States, and hey—we don’t blame you! Sticky buns are great! But there is another, much more significant day happening as well. A day on which we celebrate something so important that without it, sticky buns probably wouldn’t even exist…
Read MoreThere’s a scene in the movie The 5th Element where the villain, played by Gary Oldman, bloviates about how all the evil, destructive things he does are actually good, because they prompt the creation of industry and provide work for countless people. While we disagree strongly with the idea that the good that can come after evil things have happened somehow transmogrifies that evil into good, the fact remains that truly awful things—like a global pandemic, for example—can bring about some positive change…
Read MoreIf you meet a Belarusian on the street and ask them their primary language, the majority will most likely tell you it’s Russian. As a proud international student from Belarus, I always take a deep breath and prepare my conversation partners for a mini-history lesson about a very interesting dynamic of bilingual life in Belarus.
Belarus, as a land-locked country in Eastern Europe, has two national languages: Russian and Belarusian. Belarusian or “biełaruskaja mova” is an East Slavic language, which has many similarities to Ukrainian and Russian. Most Belarusians can read, speak, and write in Belarusian, but they do not choose it as the language of everyday life. But why? …
Read MoreWhen Dr. Susan Nyaga started school in rural Tharaka, Kenya, instruction was not offered in her mother tongue of Kitharaka, but in Kimenti, a neighboring language. Not only that, but the school added two more languages to the curriculum—English and Swahili—bringing the total number of languages she had to deal with to four. That’s a lot for any six-year-old to handle, and there was no structure in place to help her make that transition. Susan likens her experience to having a very narrow, weak bridge that she and her classmates had to use across a swelling river…
Read MoreHave you heard that the monarch butterfly population of California is on the brink of collapse?
Even if you’ve never been to California to observe the monarchs, most of us have seen this iconic species on nature shows and in magazines, and have marveled at their seemingly endless numbers. But in the last few decades the population in California has plummeted from well over four million to just over twenty eight thousand, and scientists are predicting that without a dedicated effort toward their preservation, these delicate beauties could disappear from the planet forever….
Read More
DONATIONS ARE NO LONGER BEING ACCEPTED FOR THIS PROJECT.
Thank you to those to those who donated in the past.
SIL LEAD is pleased to announce that four out of the first six Indigenous Peruvian Teacher Scholarship recipients have successfully completed their thesis requirements. The other two recipients are continuing to make progress on their research and writing. One of them will likely defend his thesis in August. Thank you for supporting this important effort to help keep minority language teachers in their classrooms.
SIL LEAD is also pleased to announce that its local partner, AIDI (Asociación Indígena de Desarollo Integral), has awarded six new scholarships. The awardees—three women and three men—represent the Awajún, Kakataibo, Shipibo-Konibo, and Yora language communities.
SIL LEAD’s Indigenous Peruvian Teacher Scholarship program was established to provide assistance to current and aspiring teachers who have completed four years of undergraduate coursework and who are seeking to complete their undergraduate thesis requirements so that they can receive their títulos (teaching credentials). Until recently, teachers in Peru were permitted to teach without títulos. Recent policy changes, however, now require that teachers obtain títulos in order to remain in the classroom.
The additional time to complete their theses and the significantly higher costs associated with this process make it especially challenging for indigenous teachers to complete these requirements. As a result, many indigenous teachers are losing their teaching positions.
Because SIL LEAD believes that children learn best when they are taught by teachers who speak their community’s language and value their culture, we initiated this pilot program to provide support to up to twenty-four teachers.
Through the generosity of a foundation and twenty-one individual donors, SIL LEAD has raised just over $40,000 (about 70 percent of the total goal). Based on the twelve scholarships already awarded, SIL LEAD is currently able to provide funds for six more scholarships. Read more about the program on the Peru page.
Photo Credit: AIDI
We'd love to hear what brings you to our site today!
