The Bible Society of Ghana has organised a three day training workshop for twenty selected Gurune facilitators from communities in the Bolgatanga Municipality, Bolga East, Bongo and the Talensi Districts to equip them with knowledge on the pronunciation and writing of Gurune consonants, vowels and other language rules to effectively teach their members to read the Gurune Bible.
The twenty five selected faciliators that are undergoing the training are drawn from Zuarungu, Kalbeo, Yorogo, Winkogo and other communities. They are made up of nineteen Males and six females.
The Facilitators were taken through the Gurune consonants and vowels ,their corresponding pronunciations and how they are written. The participants were also taught how to pronounce some sounds that are considered technical.
Mr. Aniah Francis, the Talensi District Director of the Complementary Education Agency which was formerly called Non- Formal Education Devision, who is a lead facilitator, explained that the participants are facilitators who are already teaching members of various churches on the reading of the Gurune bible while some are also new facilitators who have been brought together, to equip and update them on the Gurune consonants and vowels and how they are pronounced to help them effectively teach their members on how to successfully read the Gurune Bible.
” Most of our people are not able to read the Gurune bible because they have not been taught how to read the Gurune bible and so to help the members of the church to read and write the Gurune bible, the Bible Society of Ghana begun this training of Gurune facilitators three years ago where some people are selected from some communities to equip them with the knowledge on the how to read and write in Guruni so that they will go back to open classes in their churches and communities where they will train their members to be able to read the Gurune bible “
Justifying the need to equip the facilitators with the knowledge in the reading and writing of the Gurune language, Mr. Francis said though churches have interpreters who interpret the bible into Gurune, sometimes the bible is subjected to misinterpretation. He also added that children’s ability to read and write in the local language also helps them to learn second languages better and faster.
” In our churches it is not everyone that understand the English language and some times though there are interpreters who interpret the bible, sometimes they are not able to get the appropriate words in Gurune to translate some words and phrases which mostly deny the congregation the opportunity to understand the bible well.”
” Our children learn English and Twi more than our language. Everywhere you get to everyone is speaking English or Twi and if we don’t teach our own language first, they may not be able to speak or even identify basic things in our language. Again, it helps students to be able to read and write in their own language, it makes the learning of other languages better and faster.”
One of the facilitators from the Kalbeo community, Abeo Atule said the workshop is very important because they have been exposed to some wrong usage of the Gurune language and the consonants and vowels of the Guruni language which will equip them with the necessary skills and knowledge to also teach their members to be able to read and write in Gurune.
” This workshop is very important and beneficial to us because we have been exposed to the proper usage of some words which we either didn’t know or that we were using them wrongly. Sometimes because we don’t know, most of us are not able to fluently speak the Gurune language without infusing English because we find it difficult to speak the Gurune language well but through this workshop, we will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to teach our people to be able to read the bible and speak the Gurune language fluently without challenges.
Ignatus Baba Amoah, a facilitator from the Bolga Soe community said he has learnt a lot of things that he and most of his colleagues never knew.
” W have been taught a lot of things that most of us didn’t even know. We have been taught the Gurune consonants and vowels which are things that we have all heard of but have never seen “
The three day work started on Wednesday 29th March, 2023 at the Sacred Heart Chatholic Social Centre and will end on 1st April, 2023 where all facilitators will graduate from the workshop and be awarded certificates
They wouldl then be required to open classes in their churches or communities where they will teach their members to read and write in Gurune which would help them to read the Gurune bible independently.
By: Simon Agana Blessing/mywordfmonline.com