From Comix to Comics

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From Comix to Comics

Dr. Fraser Bennett studied French in high school, but may have learned more from the stack of Astérix comics in the back of the classroom than from the actual instruction.

It’s not a condemnation of high school education, as much as an insight into the fact that if you want kids to learn, you’ve got to speak to them in a language that they know and understand. It is also indicative of the fact that there are many, many ways a person can come to have a love of languages.

It might be argued that a love of languages is in Fraser’s blood…

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Give a Gift That Keeps on Giving

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Give a Gift That Keeps on Giving

The first language we learn to speak gives us roots. It anchors us to a place and provides us with a sense of belonging—a community. It colors how we understand the world, and in many ways defines who we are for the rest of our lives.

What if your language was disappearing—if its very existence was threatened? What if your children were not being taught to read and write in your language, and there was very little written in it for you to try and teach them yourself? Or worse, what if others thought their language was superior and were trying to replace your language with their own?

Wouldn’t you want to do something about it?

SIL LEAD is doing something about it!

And you can help…

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A World Apart, A World Together

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A World Apart, A World Together

It is almost certain that your life and the life of SIL LEAD staff member Kuchhat Narayan Chaudhary have been very, very different.

You likely did not grow up in a small farming family in Gobardiha village in the Dang district of Nepal, and you probably never had to help with plowing and grass cutting after school, or with taking the family’s sheep and buffalo out to graze…

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A Global Education Crisis (and how to resolve it)

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A Global Education Crisis (and how to resolve it)

Humans are in trouble.

We’ve always had our problems, but the exponential acceleration of technology and information has at the same time accelerated the rate at which we, as a species, are hurtling toward a number of crises of our own creation: for example, the growing environmental crisis; and the global issue of expanding income disparity.

A recent World Bank Report on ending educational poverty highlights another growing crisis—the fact that in lower-income countries, as much as 90% of ten-year-old students cannot read a simple book…

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A Call to Greatness

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A Call to Greatness

It is our honor and pleasure to introduce you to the coordinator of SIL LEAD’s work in Senegal, Béatrice Konfe. Although Béatrice would (and did) have her doubts about being called “great,” we believe that with her dedication to our mission of helping local, community-based organizations use their own languages to improve their quality of life; her joy in her own learning process; and her perseverance in the face of adversity, we can’t think of a better term to describe Béatrice…

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FOMO? Forget about it!

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FOMO? Forget about it!

Last week at the Digital Book World Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, SIL LEAD Executive Director Dr. Paul Frank spoke about what digital publishing has to offer languages without literature.

“Languages without literature… what are those?” you might ask, as you wonder what other glorious insights you might have missed by skipping another (admittedly hectic and overwhelming) conference.

Don’t worry – we’ve got you covered…

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the Imagination to Rise

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the Imagination to Rise

The challenge of any creative journey is that there is always a sense in which you are starting without a map. In the country of Uganda, the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) had a policy and commitment to mother tongue instruction. The Uganda MoES understood that a child who can’t understand the language of instruction cannot learn, and that an educated populace is the foundation of a country’s development…

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Blind Leading the Blind…? Why not!?

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Blind Leading the Blind…? Why not!?

Joyce Lopez works as the head of the Life Transformation Department at Resources for the Blind Inc. (RBI) in the Philippines. Although her siblings have moved to the United States, she remains in the country of her birth, living with her parents about forty-five minutes (by public transport) from the RBI offices in Manila and working to provide visually impaired students with the opportunity to discover their full potential. Joyce oversees the blind pastors that RBI sends to schools to work with blind children, she writes proposals, and from time to time she speaks as an advocate for the blind. When she’s not at work with RBI, she sometimes teaches computer tutorials for blind students. Joyce is a remarkable, bright young woman.

Joyce is also completely blind, and has been from birth…

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