Post-workshop thoughts

I find it amazing how something can feel like an end when actually it’s only a beginning! It’s so nice to have some space and time to rest this weekend and look back at the last 2 intense weeks of the Basic Literacy workshop and the 3 previous weeks (after our UK visit) of manic preparation. It’s hard not to feel a sense of relief and a sense of achievement. I am rather relieved the workshop is over (all that thinking in Swahili, all day every day, trying so hard to express myself in a foreign language is certainly tiring!) and also very pleased at all we achieved. But these feelings, true as they are, do give a rather false sense of this being a conclusion when really it’s only a commencement!

The path of the Basic Literacy program in Mbeya has already been a long one. Several years ago Gitti, our supervisor, started dreaming these dreams, made a start with plans and got lots of advice from Literacy experts. A bit over a year ago we had a primer (a primer is a book, well actually several in this case, to teach numbers, vowels and consonants to pre-literates) production workshop for the first two languages to be trialed with the Basic Literacy program. This was our (the Wisbeys’) first workshop in Mbeya – it was nice to know we could lend our limited (well, I speak for myself, at least!) Swahili, Literacy and computing skills to this important process. A template had already been devised and now the language specific information needed to be added – letters, keywords to teach the letters, correct pictures of the keywords and short stories to give the new reader practice. Since that point I have been improving this material – formatting and getting it checked by the linguistics department. I have also completed the teachers’ guides for these primers, got them translated into Swahili from English, done yet more formatting, produced ‘big books’ from the content of the primers and overseen the production of other resources (flashcards, letter and keyword cards, flashcard holders, memory card games…). It has certainly been a team effect (thank you all who contributed – you know who you are!) and quite an effort at that! So it was exciting to see the first Basic Literacy workshop actually take place after such an amount of preparation!

Take place it did… we had 8 preschool teachers arrive in Mbeya to take part – 4 women from the Vwanji language area and 4 men from the Malila language area. They stayed for 2 weeks and were very happy and touchingly grateful to receive this time of training (some had had no specific training whatsoever in how to teach preschool children before starting their jobs!) and the resources that we had prepared for teaching mother tongue literacy (some have hardly any resources whatsoever – no books to guide them or the children, no games equipment or toys and some even have no blackboard or chalk). We tried to come alongside them, equip them and encourage them in the great work they do as it literally can be a thankless task. They struggle with ungrateful parents, little or no pay, huge classes of mixed ages and abilities and little or no resources. I certainly couldn’t do it! We also tried to instill in them the importance of teaching mother tongue literacy as well as Swahili and inspire them in the job we were calling them to do. They left with a box of resources each, thankful hearts and a realization that what they had been called to would not be easy but would be rewarding and eventually could make a huge difference to their communities.

So now they’ve gone back to their homes, families and jobs. It’s quite a scary position we find ourselves in now. As I said it’s only a beginning really… we have trained the teachers as best we could, produced lots of resources to help them, tried to make the books easy to use and as accurate as possible (though we already know there are probably many mistakes to be ironed out even after several checks!). We have given them the tools and now have to leave them to do the job. Of course we will not literally leave them, though many miles separate us, we are already making plans to visit to encourage them, help with teething problems, inform the relevant people of our plans and provide the resources that we couldn’t finish in time. We are still very much working out the process from here on and the best way to go about things (it really is a trial at the moment!) but we will not leave them on their own. However, only time and a lot of hard work will tell whether this program really works and produces children who can read and write well in their mother tongue before taking the next (easier) step to learn to read and write in their second language, Swahili.

As well as these considerations its important to remember these are just the first two languages that we are trialing! There are several more that are waiting for their own Basic Literacy program! When I remember that almost this whole process will have to be repeated for each new language (there are 8!) I realize this is only the beginning of a very long, but hopefully worthwhile, journey.