Registered under the Companies Act, 2019 Act 992, the Bible Society of Ghana, as part of its efforts to improve the use of the local language amongst indigenes, has extended the mother tongue literacy project to its members in the Upper East Region.
The initiative seeks to improve and promote the use of the local language amongst members as well as train them on how to communicate using the mother tongue to address health, education and other human rights related issues in society.
Speaking at the training held in Bolgatanga, the National Coordinator of the SMC Literacy Project, Ronald Sylvester Nettey explained that mother-tongue literacy is the future, “as a lot of us think in our mothers’ tongue in taking action”.
“This project seeks to achieve development. We [the Bible Society of Ghana] believe that one can’t abandon one’s language and be perfect at someone else’s language. Before you can be perfect at it, you should be perfect with your own language. so we decided to do this project and a lot of us think in our mother tongue and our level of intelligence, ingenuity or creativity comes from our mother tongue. So, the need for this training”, he added.
Mr Nettey added that the 3-day initiative sought to also train the 29 facilitators in the Bolgatanga Municipality to replicate same to other members in their various communities.
He stressed, “each facilitator after this 3-day engagement will also take a class of 30 at their various communities and train them on how to use the mother tongue. Just look at the Chinese; they don’t speak other languages apart from theirs, the Japanese and others, but why is it that when it comes to us (Ghanaians), we have to master other languages before we can be perfect in our language. So, we need to develop our local languages. The project duration is a year and so we expect our participants to replicate the same for members in their communities. Our mother tongue is our identity and heritage, it is who we are as a people.”
The Bible Society of Ghana is a non-denominational Christian organization with voluntary membership aimed at fine-tuning the living conditions of members through the spreading of the gospel and its relevant materials.
The Advocacy officer of the project, Gawobunah Kobla also encouraged the facilitators to be keen on the message and replicate the same to beneficiaries in their communities, “as a regular visit will be done to keep in check how you are performing in your community”.
Some of the beneficiaries who spoke to the media during the training expressed their excitement and pledged to make good use of the project.
The project was supported by the church and funded by the Swedish Bible Society and the Swedish Mission Council and partners.
Source: A1radioonline.com|101.1 MHz|Moses Apiah|Bolgatanga|Ghana
