The Bible Society of Ghana through the Gurenɛ Sweden Mission Council Literacy project has graduated over 896 Gurenɛ learners in the Upper East region.
The learners have undergone six months training on how to identify the gurenɛ alphabets, sound and how to blend them to make meaningful sounds. They were also taught how to read and write in the gurenɛ language.
Speaking to the media on behalf of the project coordinator, Mr Gawobunah Kobla Julius Anthony, Ms Paulina Abeo noted that the over 896 Gurenɛ SMC literacy students has been graduated and out of the total number, 333 are males and 563 females.
She noted that since the Gurenɛ SMC literacy project was implemented in 2019 in the Upper East Region, four batches of Gurenɛ SMC literacy students in the region.
The project is currently taking place in about 25 communities, with 25 community volunteers across the region. The beneficiary districts include; the Bolgatanga Municipality, Bongo district, Talensi and Bolgatanga East district.
“The Gurene project in the Upper East Region also passed out three thousand four hundred and one (3,401) learners, with two thousand one hundred and seventeen (2,117) being female and one thousand two hundred and eighty four (1,284) being male learners. Today’s graduation of learners scale up to two phases, four batches, unfolded in the Bolga East and Bolga Municipal, respectively, since 2019.The Talensi District is currently benefitting from the literacy package, with a total number of twenty five volunteers trained in March this year. The volunteers are currently running the literacy programme in communities, schools and churches”.
She added that language gives the identity of people, shape their culture and there is the need to preserve the language of people through the use of various channels to prevent our languages from dying out.
“Languages reflect, and to some extent shape culture. Culture is a way of thinking and acting to transmit knowledge. The best possible way to prevent language extinction is taking language learning sessions and classes. Therefore creating recorded and printed resources and documentation is essential for preserving languages. Using digital and social media outlets, insisting on speaking your native language, are all ways of preserving languages for posterity.
Increasing the language prestige within the dominant community, and having a strong presence in the educational system and writing down the language, are all ways of preserving languages.
We should therefore stop languages from dying, because of it rich cultural history and identity. If the protection of the world languages is neglected, the breath of humanity’s knowledge is diminished, and humankind as a whole has done a disservice.”
According to the Ethnologue guide, there are seven thousand one hundred and thirty nine officially known languages. The current update for 2024 is seven thousand one hundred and fifty one languages in the world.
The 25 volunteers were also given a bicycle each to aid them in their work delivery.
Speaking to some of the graduates, they expressed joy over how they could now read and write in their mother’s tongue and as such translate English into the Gurenɛ language.
According to Ayamga Eva, a learner from Zanlerigu in the Nabdam district, he got married to the Bolga Soe community in the Bolgatanga Municipality, but could not speak nor write the Gurenɛ language, but due the Gurenɛ SMC literacy training, she can now read, write and translate English into the Gurenɛ language.
Asumbono Antoinette, from Zuarungu told Word News that she can read and write in the Gurenɛ language and can also read the Gurenɛ Bible.
Mr. Ndebila David Anamzime, a facilitor from the Dapoore community, a suburb of Winkogo in the Talensi district told Word News that they have been training the students on the basic sounds in the Gurenɛ language and how to produce meaningful sounds as well as well how to read and write.
He added that some of the learners initially could not even identify the alphabets, but for the training, they can now read the Gurenɛ bible and any Gurenɛ material they place their hands on.
Source : mywordfmonline.com/Gaspard Ayuureneeya