The Basics:
- Funded by: USAID
- Prime contractor: University Research Co. (URC)
- SIL LEAD involvement: 2016-2018
- Minority languages served (15): Bangladesh: Bangla, Haiti: Haitian Creole, Indonesia: Bahasa Indonesia, Nepal: Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Doteli, Maithili, Nepal Bhasha, Nepali, Tharu, Nigeria: Hausa, and the Philippines: Cebuano / Cagayan de Oro, Waray, Hiligaynon
- Materials produced: 3,000 books (50 Decodable Readers / 150 Leveled Readers per language)
- Metrics: Bloom Trainer Workshops in Indonesia (for trainers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and the Philippines), Haiti, and Nigeria. Certification of 5 Bloom Trainers.
Thesis of Project: The Enabling Writers initiative is designed to train teams of local writers to produce hundreds of decodable and leveled books with content that reflects the child’s culture and language.
Enabling writers authors in the philippines
SIL LEAD Overall Contribution to Project: SIL LEAD developed training materials/curriculum, provided Bloom training and certification to awardee staff, coordinated the translation of the Bloom interface and training videos, provided language setups for each project language, and facilitated the archiving of books produced by awardees to the Bloom Library.
Summary of the Project: One of the major challenges in addressing literacy needs in developing countries is the lack of appropriate decodable and levelled texts for young readers, available in a language they can understand. The Enabling Writers initiative is designed to train teams of local writers to produce hundreds of decodable and leveled books reflecting the cultures and languages of the young people who will read them. The initiative uses SIL International’s Bloom book-writing software, the winner of the All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development competition.
The following organizations are the project awardees:
- Dhaka Asania Mission in Bangladesh
- Library for All in Haiti
- Yayasan Sulinama in Indonesia
- World Education Inc. in Nepal
- American University of Nigeria in Nigeria
- University of San Jose–Recoletos in the Philippines
Dr. Grace Malgwi, EW Pedagogy Lead at American University Nigeria, conducting a training session on the Bloom book producing software
By supporting quality early grade book development and providing those books for open use through both print and digital formats, the All Children Reading Grand Challenge Partnership, the Global Reading Network and Reading within Reach are working to ensure that the goal of providing quality reading resources for every child can become a reality in developing countries around the world.
The goal is for country teams to engage local writers (up to 30 writers per country) to work together to write 200 or more books per local languages in Bangladesh, Haiti, Indonesia, and Nigeria, 800 books in four languages in the Philippines, and 1,400 books in seven languages in Nepal. All books will be aligned with specific national competencies for literacy acquisition and content knowledge, while content will be culturally and contextually appropriate. Projects are engaging local ministries of education in their implementation and book development, and all book products will be delivered to national ministries of education for adoption and use with schools across each country.
Source: Adapted from https://globalreadingnetwork.net/news-and-events/blog/enabling-writers-projects-launch-asia