Simple, essential-language booklets empower Pacific communities to strengthen their health and well-being. As day begins over the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG),...
Blog
Simple, essential-language booklets empower Pacific communities to strengthen their health and well-being. As day begins over the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG),...
An innovative new reading program drives positive change across generations in Uganda. One Ugandan teacher made a startling discovery as he sat listening to a young...
Literacy programs help revitalize minds and restore dignity in local Colombian communities. You would never suspect from the lines in his face or his steady gaze that...
Trauma healing workshops foster healing and reconciliation between warring communities in Ethiopia. In southern Ethiopia, Abraham Gahano is a pastor in the Konso...
An unexpected encounter in Mexico draws one woman into a lifelong commitment to support her language. In 2004, Jeanne Austin walked through a door in San Marcos...
Children and caregivers counter gender-based violence through personal safety training in the Solomon Islands. In 2023, thousands of people packed the Solomon Islands...
Audio recordings help one Native American community preserve their language for future generations. In January 2025, the flag of the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw...
Community programs raise awareness around human trafficking risks in South Asia. What would you do if someone you love suddenly disappeared without a word? An enticing...
In October 2024, SIL was involved in something unprecedented in the small coastal town of Watamu, Kenya. With the sound of ocean waves breaking in the background,...
One young man carries the principles imparted to him by his Kenyan community into a life of leadership. Anthony Kamau (pictured right) credits his local Kenyan community...
SIL’s annual celebration of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) will be hosted in the Solomon Islands on International Mother Language Day,...
New literacy project rekindles hope for literacy and learning in one Ethiopian community. Beneath the sunlit sky of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, the Suri people regularly...
In the Lotud community of Malaysia, a remarkable transformation is underway, spearheaded by Sylvia’s unwavering dedication to revitalizing the Lotud language for over a...
Samuel’s father, Robert*, does not recall whether his son cried on the day of his birth. He only knows that complications left his newborn breathing through a tube for...
When the people of Ebebda talk to the river, they speak Mengisa. From the time life begins the river is a part of their daily conversations. Parents take their babies to...
An education consultant in Southeast Asia overcomes a lifetime of obstacles to return to school. Minda began her undergraduate degree studying management in her home...
Technology accelerates long-awaited translation for communities in Peru. When SIL Translation Consultant Mark Bean and his family settled in Peru to support communities...
Deaf teachers learn gamification skills to design engaging, educational books for Deaf students. In December 2023, Deaf teachers from Colombia, El Salvador, and...
When translation advisor to the Finongan language team in Papua New Guinea, Chris Rice, learned about SIL’s Alpha Tiles literacy app during a workshop in Thailand, he...
When you think about Bible translation, most likely your first mental image is of words on a page, or text on a computer screen. But what if the translation is into a...
A young Cameroonian discovers his talent to change lives through literacy. Emmanuel Tambakui spent much time in prayer wrestling with one question— was he meant to be a...
A longtime resident of Lewiston, Maine, SIL’s Associate Executive Director Steve Moitozo has developed close relationships within the city and its large immigrant...
Losing your language is not merely a linguistic loss. Woven into language is one’s culture and very identity. While it may be expedient to use a language of wider...
Mobile health clinic provides care to remote communities in Melanesia. Much of the world would consider the roads leading to Wopepa in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New...
An innovative new tool helps parents transmit culture and learning. “Maybe it’s because we have been learning together [that] she wants me to bring her to school.” One...
The Binumarien people live in remote villages in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Once numbering over 3,000 people, in 1958 their numbers had dwindled...
Strong families help build resilience against some of society’s most perilous issues in Asia and beyond. “All my friends my age are dead because of drugs.” This...
One day, as young Emanuel carried lunch to his dad at his workplace, he noticed a group of children in school uniforms reading signs and posters as they walked along...
SIL Bangladesh opens Learning Centers to fill Covid learning gap. In 2020, Covid brought education systems worldwide to an abrupt halt as parents and children alike...
Imagine you are Deaf. Your whole world is focused on seeing. Your eyes are the way you learn language. Now imagine that you are told you are going blind and imagine the...
Graduate students find new ways to join community development efforts. The people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) use more languages across their Melanesian island nation than...
Linking data between similar languages accelerates translation efforts in the Philippines. When members of the Ayta Mag-Antsi community heard the book of Ruth read aloud...
In a noteworthy initiative, the Kenga language community of Chad is set to release their very first dictionary later this year, marking a significant milestone in...
Indonesian children show their natural learning potential despite enormous challenges. For more than fifteen years, the doors to the public school in Kosarek village*...
New program supporting linguists from local language communities selects first scholarship recipient. Intuitively it seems clear that those best positioned to contribute...
BILAT is a Deaf organization in Tanzania. In the last several years they have taken a special interest in Deaf children by providing help for Deaf school children who...
School literacy program in a local Nepali language helps people of all ages make healthier choices. Bibek’s teachers once thought he was a naughty child—willful and...
Richard Yalonde serves as Team Leader for the Mbeya Cluster Project of Tanzania. This project includes over a dozen language development and translations teams,...
Parents around the world want to see their children reading for pleasure, knowing it opens doors to education and opportunities. But millions of children have few to no...
The Bakarwal Gujars are nomadic pastoralists living on the southern side of the Himalayas in Pakistan and India. Following migratory routes handed down through the...
Deaf teachers create sign language books to educate vulnerable communities about the dangers of exploitation. Leer en español Deaf students in Latin America gathered for...
Linguistics students shift perspectives to support learning in early education. In Peru’s capital city of Lima, university students from across South and Central America...
A local team tied together by faith and family translates the Bible into Mexican Sign Language (LSM). Try as he might, Guillermo could not connect with his family. Born...
Radio drama helps African communities address Ebola concerns. Local staff buzzed with excitement as the Minister of Health for the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
A Story of Innovation & Collaboration in Papua New Guinea Koen den Hartogh, an SIL language technology consultant working in Papua New Guinea, had a simple idea in...
Caribbean born linguist and influential educator, Jill Paterson-Charles, begins role as Ethnologue program director. On the small Caribbean island of Grenada, a young...
Philippines workshop offers communities decision-making tools in determining the future of their languages. In May 2023 SIL consultants facilitated a five-day language...
Media production training gives participants a powerful, creative platform to share their stories. Years of experience in training staff from radio, TV and language...
What is Poverty? The popular notion of poverty is that it is a deficit, a state of not having enough material goods nor the means to acquire them. Yet scholars of...
SIL training in media production helps aspiring communicators develop valuable new skills. As advancements in digital media continue to accelerate, more widely creative...
In March SIL Ethiopia celebrated its 50 years of accomplishments in partnership with both governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The Ethiopian Evangelical...
Schoolchildren in Nepal are tackling social issues and creating change in their community. Early learning in the mother tongue helps young students reach a better...
In an effort to inspire more enthusiasm around writing and reading in local languages, SIL Cameroon hosted a book creation contest for the local public. In cooperation...
Literacy programs in Peru deepen access to Scripture. In 1988 a dream came true for members of the Cusco Quechua faith community—the Bible published in their very own...
In the English and Portuguese-speaking areas of Africa where SIL works, a new internship program has begun. These interns are young, professional men and women from...
A new children’s program sets the stage for small change on a global scale. Language learning begins as early as the womb, making language a crucial tool for impactful...
A trauma healing program saves lives in a fiercely persecuted community. Many communities around the world exist in historical hotbeds of unrest and conflict. Recent...
How local art supports culturally relevant Bible translation Every language is unique and can convey the truths about God and the Bible in a way that no other language...
Fifty year-old literacy material is finding renewed purpose in the Mazatec speaking region of Mexico. In February 2022, Mexico’s National Institute of Indigenous...
I spent a year in a refugee camp after my family left Rwanda in 1994. So I know the pain and trouble people go through in refugee camps. Refugees in Africa make up a...
One African community realizes their worth. One of the most uplifting moments in the Old Testament takes place when God makes a promise to Abraham to extend a blessing...
In the era of the Internet and global communications, immeasurable amounts of digital information are being created, shared and consumed. From emails, SMS text messages...
Smartphone technology puts information access in the hands of more people. It is estimated that 70% of the world’s population now have access to a smartphone, making it...
SIL collaborates with Intel® to expand language recognition technology for more users. Imagine navigating a bustling, new city for the first time. Now imagine tackling...
Do you remember what it was like to take your seat on your very first day in school, bright eyed and bushy tailed—eager to please? Imagine, if you will, that once the...
Early in 2022, a Scripture Engagement (SE) research team working in an Asian nation met with local pastors and leaders to try to make sense of the research team’s data...
The International Decade of Indigenous Languages amplifies SIL’s mission to support language communities. The start to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (...
When ethnic conflict in Ethiopia was increasing and the war in the northern regions began, SIL leaders met with the SIL Ethiopia Scripture Engagement team in November...
Todd and Becky Bequette, the local SIL team members, help to facilitate the relationship between the B* Video Project team and the main Project Video office based in...
The Keliko of South Sudan boldly maintain faith and hope despite years of repeated conflict, displacement and trauma. The statistics of people living in diaspora...
Workshops in Indonesia equip participants to make scripture songwriting their own. On a visit to remote islands in the Maluku province in Indonesia, Latupeirissa was...
“When can we start? We’re ready!” The Nyika language community (about 25,000 speakers in Rukwa Region, western Tanzania) is eager to have Scripture in their own language...
With more people on the move than ever before, diaspora populations present a major area of impact affecting the world’s peoples. Many embark on this journey with hope...
Advancements in AI models shrink the digital language gap. Despite impressive strides forward technologically, only about 600 of the world's 7,151 languages* are...
Diaspora communities face particular opportunities and challenges in pursuing a better life. In 2020 the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration...
The group of preschool teachers sat quietly on the floor, eagerly listening to their trainer. All were speakers of the Lahi* language of West Asia. They had been...
“If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words,” explains SIL Ethnoarts Consultant, Todd Saurman, “then the pictures . . . need to be related to [a community's...
SIL’s Digital Strategy Guides help language resources find life online With the demand for digital content increasing daily, the ability to create and distribute...
In February 2021, a friend in Jos, Nigeria, visited me. He told me about a new school he recently started to reach out to a Hausa speaking community. The community and...
Deaf Christians welcome the first full translation of the Bible in American Sign Language. After more than four decades of work, translators recently crossed the finish...
It’s well known that the COVID pandemic has had a detrimental impact on the lives of young children, students and youth around the world and has exacerbated inequalities...
The idea that God could speak to people in Mugalo* didn’t seem reasonable to a local church in Southeast Asia. Some people considered it too “coarse” and questioned...
Bloom helps create more accessible books for special needs readers. India-based organization, Chetana Charitable Trust , continues to provide parents in local...
Mother tongue preschools give children an educational head start. Children from the Kali* community in Eurasia often endure nearly insurmountable difficulties in school...
From collecting molluscs in mosquito-infested swamps to farming vegetables all day in the sweltering heat, child labour is still common in many parts of the world...
Literacy skills empower women in Africa to thrive. Lack of basic literacy skills imposes major disadvantages on many women across Africa. The inability to read and write...
Faith and farming initiative restores positive self-image to Nigerian farmers. Dirty hands and long hours readily distinguish those who work the land cultivating crops...
The Oral Story-based Trauma Healing training program came to Niger in 2018. Story-based trauma healing was originally designed as an oral program for communities, like...
Question: How Do You Write a Book When Lives are Literally on the Line? Answer: Very carefully. If you’re alive and have access to the internet (which I think we can...
A new generation of leaders and advocates emerge in rural Bangladesh As the world makes strides toward equal access, equality and social justice for all, traditionally...
Until recently, few Deaf children participated in Tanzanian church services. Inspired by this observation, BILAT—a Deaf NGO committed to Bible translation, promoting...
Deaf Organizations Unite to Provide Access to Vital Health Information Imagine living in this pandemic world without access to knowledge about the virus, like how to...
Grace Simon, a refugee herself, has emerged as a leader in establishing a network of Trauma Healing* groups, even though she had only attended one Trauma Healing...
Experienced in documenting lesser-known languages of the world, SIL International is now producing language learning materials in something of a new language for us—...
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread indiscriminately around the world, many local communities experienced the effects of this unprecedented crisis to a disproportionate...
When COVID-19 swept through Chad, a country of 15 million in the northern part of Central Africa, many local communities saw the urgent need to warn those around them...
The global impact of a deadly virus requires creative thinking to respond effectively. Ingenuity is crucial because no single language or solution exists to inform those...
As told by Serge Razafinjatoniary The FJKM Zoara Fanantenana Ambohipo (FJKM Ambohipo Church) has a double advantage for ministry: it is in Madagascar’s capital city of...
(Photo above) More than 1,000 Naskapis now live in their community of Kawawachikamach in Quebec, surrounded by forests and swamy muskeg (peat bog). Before settling here...
Dr. Brenda Boerger, SIL Language and Culture Documentation Coordinator, led a team of five interns to Santa Cruz Island, in the Solomon Islands, for fieldwork in the...
The Kamasau language [kms] is spoken in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. About 900 people live in this lowlands language area, but many of the children under...
About 100,000 Jenjo people live along the north bank of the Benue river at the intersection of Taraba, Gombe and Adamawa States in northeast Nigeria, and speak the Dza...
Over the next few months, SIL will present our ongoing language and culture documentation efforts in some of the world's lesser-known languages in conjunction with the...
Bungu, a tonal language, now has a writing system ready for testing and literacy training. - Mbeya, Tanzania After years of research and testing, the Bungu team received...
If someone holds a book written in his own language but doesn’t know how to read the words, it’s like a starving person holding a fishing net without knowing how to use...
In Anabel’s Me’phaa-speaking town located high in the mountains of southern Mexico, there is no cell phone service. People use radios to communicate within the town...
Tales of towering waves and howling winds worried the Language Survey Team. Should they postpone the trip? Had village leaders received the letters that were sent ahead...
Children passed by on their way to school but Chanceline was only able to watch them. She would have loved to go to school with them but that was not possible...
Around the village and in the fields, many children perched on logs or stones to read and to try to copy th e letters. It had been two years since an alphabet for the...
When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Hillary’s Sherpa guide, reached the summit of the world’s tallest mountain in 1953, the term sherpa soon became synonymous with “...
Leen Suma Adhikari has worked with SIL Bangladesh since April 2012 as a language and education officer. She facilitates teacher training and curriculum development...
Leti, a young Me’phaa woman from Zoquitlán, Mexico, recently attended an SIL-sponsored writers' workshop. Leti is working and attending college in Chilpancingo, the...
Simple, essential-language booklets empower Pacific communities to strengthen their health and well-being. As day begins over the highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG),...
An innovative new reading program drives positive change across generations in Uganda. One Ugandan teacher made a startling discovery as he sat listening to a young...
Literacy programs help revitalize minds and restore dignity in local Colombian communities. You would never suspect from the lines in his face or his steady gaze that...
Trauma healing workshops foster healing and reconciliation between warring communities in Ethiopia. In southern Ethiopia, Abraham Gahano is a pastor in the Konso...
An unexpected encounter in Mexico draws one woman into a lifelong commitment to support her language. In 2004, Jeanne Austin walked through a door in San Marcos...
Children and caregivers counter gender-based violence through personal safety training in the Solomon Islands. In 2023, thousands of people packed the Solomon Islands...
Audio recordings help one Native American community preserve their language for future generations. In January 2025, the flag of the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw...
Community programs raise awareness around human trafficking risks in South Asia. What would you do if someone you love suddenly disappeared without a word? An enticing...
In October 2024, SIL was involved in something unprecedented in the small coastal town of Watamu, Kenya. With the sound of ocean waves breaking in the background,...
One young man carries the principles imparted to him by his Kenyan community into a life of leadership. Anthony Kamau (pictured right) credits his local Kenyan community...
SIL’s annual celebration of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032) will be hosted in the Solomon Islands on International Mother Language Day,...
New literacy project rekindles hope for literacy and learning in one Ethiopian community. Beneath the sunlit sky of Ethiopia’s Omo Valley, the Suri people regularly...
In the Lotud community of Malaysia, a remarkable transformation is underway, spearheaded by Sylvia’s unwavering dedication to revitalizing the Lotud language for over a...
Samuel’s father, Robert*, does not recall whether his son cried on the day of his birth. He only knows that complications left his newborn breathing through a tube for...
When the people of Ebebda talk to the river, they speak Mengisa. From the time life begins the river is a part of their daily conversations. Parents take their babies to...
An education consultant in Southeast Asia overcomes a lifetime of obstacles to return to school. Minda began her undergraduate degree studying management in her home...
Technology accelerates long-awaited translation for communities in Peru. When SIL Translation Consultant Mark Bean and his family settled in Peru to support communities...
Deaf teachers learn gamification skills to design engaging, educational books for Deaf students. In December 2023, Deaf teachers from Colombia, El Salvador, and...
When translation advisor to the Finongan language team in Papua New Guinea, Chris Rice, learned about SIL’s Alpha Tiles literacy app during a workshop in Thailand, he...
When you think about Bible translation, most likely your first mental image is of words on a page, or text on a computer screen. But what if the translation is into a...
A young Cameroonian discovers his talent to change lives through literacy. Emmanuel Tambakui spent much time in prayer wrestling with one question— was he meant to be a...
A longtime resident of Lewiston, Maine, SIL’s Associate Executive Director Steve Moitozo has developed close relationships within the city and its large immigrant...
Losing your language is not merely a linguistic loss. Woven into language is one’s culture and very identity. While it may be expedient to use a language of wider...
Mobile health clinic provides care to remote communities in Melanesia. Much of the world would consider the roads leading to Wopepa in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New...
An innovative new tool helps parents transmit culture and learning. “Maybe it’s because we have been learning together [that] she wants me to bring her to school.” One...
The Binumarien people live in remote villages in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. Once numbering over 3,000 people, in 1958 their numbers had dwindled...
Strong families help build resilience against some of society’s most perilous issues in Asia and beyond. “All my friends my age are dead because of drugs.” This...
One day, as young Emanuel carried lunch to his dad at his workplace, he noticed a group of children in school uniforms reading signs and posters as they walked along...
SIL Bangladesh opens Learning Centers to fill Covid learning gap. In 2020, Covid brought education systems worldwide to an abrupt halt as parents and children alike...
Imagine you are Deaf. Your whole world is focused on seeing. Your eyes are the way you learn language. Now imagine that you are told you are going blind and imagine the...
Graduate students find new ways to join community development efforts. The people of Papua New Guinea (PNG) use more languages across their Melanesian island nation than...
Linking data between similar languages accelerates translation efforts in the Philippines. When members of the Ayta Mag-Antsi community heard the book of Ruth read aloud...
In a noteworthy initiative, the Kenga language community of Chad is set to release their very first dictionary later this year, marking a significant milestone in...
Indonesian children show their natural learning potential despite enormous challenges. For more than fifteen years, the doors to the public school in Kosarek village*...
New program supporting linguists from local language communities selects first scholarship recipient. Intuitively it seems clear that those best positioned to contribute...
BILAT is a Deaf organization in Tanzania. In the last several years they have taken a special interest in Deaf children by providing help for Deaf school children who...
School literacy program in a local Nepali language helps people of all ages make healthier choices. Bibek’s teachers once thought he was a naughty child—willful and...
Richard Yalonde serves as Team Leader for the Mbeya Cluster Project of Tanzania. This project includes over a dozen language development and translations teams,...
Parents around the world want to see their children reading for pleasure, knowing it opens doors to education and opportunities. But millions of children have few to no...
The Bakarwal Gujars are nomadic pastoralists living on the southern side of the Himalayas in Pakistan and India. Following migratory routes handed down through the...
Deaf teachers create sign language books to educate vulnerable communities about the dangers of exploitation. Leer en español Deaf students in Latin America gathered for...
Linguistics students shift perspectives to support learning in early education. In Peru’s capital city of Lima, university students from across South and Central America...
A local team tied together by faith and family translates the Bible into Mexican Sign Language (LSM). Try as he might, Guillermo could not connect with his family. Born...
Radio drama helps African communities address Ebola concerns. Local staff buzzed with excitement as the Minister of Health for the Democratic Republic of the Congo...
A Story of Innovation & Collaboration in Papua New Guinea Koen den Hartogh, an SIL language technology consultant working in Papua New Guinea, had a simple idea in...
Caribbean born linguist and influential educator, Jill Paterson-Charles, begins role as Ethnologue program director. On the small Caribbean island of Grenada, a young...
Philippines workshop offers communities decision-making tools in determining the future of their languages. In May 2023 SIL consultants facilitated a five-day language...
Media production training gives participants a powerful, creative platform to share their stories. Years of experience in training staff from radio, TV and language...
What is Poverty? The popular notion of poverty is that it is a deficit, a state of not having enough material goods nor the means to acquire them. Yet scholars of...
SIL training in media production helps aspiring communicators develop valuable new skills. As advancements in digital media continue to accelerate, more widely creative...
In March SIL Ethiopia celebrated its 50 years of accomplishments in partnership with both governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The Ethiopian Evangelical...
Schoolchildren in Nepal are tackling social issues and creating change in their community. Early learning in the mother tongue helps young students reach a better...
In an effort to inspire more enthusiasm around writing and reading in local languages, SIL Cameroon hosted a book creation contest for the local public. In cooperation...
Literacy programs in Peru deepen access to Scripture. In 1988 a dream came true for members of the Cusco Quechua faith community—the Bible published in their very own...
In the English and Portuguese-speaking areas of Africa where SIL works, a new internship program has begun. These interns are young, professional men and women from...
A new children’s program sets the stage for small change on a global scale. Language learning begins as early as the womb, making language a crucial tool for impactful...
A trauma healing program saves lives in a fiercely persecuted community. Many communities around the world exist in historical hotbeds of unrest and conflict. Recent...
How local art supports culturally relevant Bible translation Every language is unique and can convey the truths about God and the Bible in a way that no other language...
Fifty year-old literacy material is finding renewed purpose in the Mazatec speaking region of Mexico. In February 2022, Mexico’s National Institute of Indigenous...
I spent a year in a refugee camp after my family left Rwanda in 1994. So I know the pain and trouble people go through in refugee camps. Refugees in Africa make up a...
One African community realizes their worth. One of the most uplifting moments in the Old Testament takes place when God makes a promise to Abraham to extend a blessing...
In the era of the Internet and global communications, immeasurable amounts of digital information are being created, shared and consumed. From emails, SMS text messages...
Smartphone technology puts information access in the hands of more people. It is estimated that 70% of the world’s population now have access to a smartphone, making it...
SIL collaborates with Intel® to expand language recognition technology for more users. Imagine navigating a bustling, new city for the first time. Now imagine tackling...
Do you remember what it was like to take your seat on your very first day in school, bright eyed and bushy tailed—eager to please? Imagine, if you will, that once the...
Early in 2022, a Scripture Engagement (SE) research team working in an Asian nation met with local pastors and leaders to try to make sense of the research team’s data...
The International Decade of Indigenous Languages amplifies SIL’s mission to support language communities. The start to the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (...
When ethnic conflict in Ethiopia was increasing and the war in the northern regions began, SIL leaders met with the SIL Ethiopia Scripture Engagement team in November...
Todd and Becky Bequette, the local SIL team members, help to facilitate the relationship between the B* Video Project team and the main Project Video office based in...
The Keliko of South Sudan boldly maintain faith and hope despite years of repeated conflict, displacement and trauma. The statistics of people living in diaspora...
Workshops in Indonesia equip participants to make scripture songwriting their own. On a visit to remote islands in the Maluku province in Indonesia, Latupeirissa was...
“When can we start? We’re ready!” The Nyika language community (about 25,000 speakers in Rukwa Region, western Tanzania) is eager to have Scripture in their own language...
With more people on the move than ever before, diaspora populations present a major area of impact affecting the world’s peoples. Many embark on this journey with hope...
Advancements in AI models shrink the digital language gap. Despite impressive strides forward technologically, only about 600 of the world's 7,151 languages* are...
Diaspora communities face particular opportunities and challenges in pursuing a better life. In 2020 the United Nations’ International Organization for Migration...
The group of preschool teachers sat quietly on the floor, eagerly listening to their trainer. All were speakers of the Lahi* language of West Asia. They had been...
“If it is true that a picture is worth a thousand words,” explains SIL Ethnoarts Consultant, Todd Saurman, “then the pictures . . . need to be related to [a community's...
SIL’s Digital Strategy Guides help language resources find life online With the demand for digital content increasing daily, the ability to create and distribute...
In February 2021, a friend in Jos, Nigeria, visited me. He told me about a new school he recently started to reach out to a Hausa speaking community. The community and...
Deaf Christians welcome the first full translation of the Bible in American Sign Language. After more than four decades of work, translators recently crossed the finish...
It’s well known that the COVID pandemic has had a detrimental impact on the lives of young children, students and youth around the world and has exacerbated inequalities...
The idea that God could speak to people in Mugalo* didn’t seem reasonable to a local church in Southeast Asia. Some people considered it too “coarse” and questioned...
Bloom helps create more accessible books for special needs readers. India-based organization, Chetana Charitable Trust , continues to provide parents in local...
Mother tongue preschools give children an educational head start. Children from the Kali* community in Eurasia often endure nearly insurmountable difficulties in school...
From collecting molluscs in mosquito-infested swamps to farming vegetables all day in the sweltering heat, child labour is still common in many parts of the world...
Literacy skills empower women in Africa to thrive. Lack of basic literacy skills imposes major disadvantages on many women across Africa. The inability to read and write...
Faith and farming initiative restores positive self-image to Nigerian farmers. Dirty hands and long hours readily distinguish those who work the land cultivating crops...
The Oral Story-based Trauma Healing training program came to Niger in 2018. Story-based trauma healing was originally designed as an oral program for communities, like...
Question: How Do You Write a Book When Lives are Literally on the Line? Answer: Very carefully. If you’re alive and have access to the internet (which I think we can...
A new generation of leaders and advocates emerge in rural Bangladesh As the world makes strides toward equal access, equality and social justice for all, traditionally...
Until recently, few Deaf children participated in Tanzanian church services. Inspired by this observation, BILAT—a Deaf NGO committed to Bible translation, promoting...
Deaf Organizations Unite to Provide Access to Vital Health Information Imagine living in this pandemic world without access to knowledge about the virus, like how to...
Grace Simon, a refugee herself, has emerged as a leader in establishing a network of Trauma Healing* groups, even though she had only attended one Trauma Healing...
Experienced in documenting lesser-known languages of the world, SIL International is now producing language learning materials in something of a new language for us—...
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread indiscriminately around the world, many local communities experienced the effects of this unprecedented crisis to a disproportionate...
When COVID-19 swept through Chad, a country of 15 million in the northern part of Central Africa, many local communities saw the urgent need to warn those around them...
The global impact of a deadly virus requires creative thinking to respond effectively. Ingenuity is crucial because no single language or solution exists to inform those...
As told by Serge Razafinjatoniary The FJKM Zoara Fanantenana Ambohipo (FJKM Ambohipo Church) has a double advantage for ministry: it is in Madagascar’s capital city of...
(Photo above) More than 1,000 Naskapis now live in their community of Kawawachikamach in Quebec, surrounded by forests and swamy muskeg (peat bog). Before settling here...
Dr. Brenda Boerger, SIL Language and Culture Documentation Coordinator, led a team of five interns to Santa Cruz Island, in the Solomon Islands, for fieldwork in the...
The Kamasau language [kms] is spoken in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea. About 900 people live in this lowlands language area, but many of the children under...
About 100,000 Jenjo people live along the north bank of the Benue river at the intersection of Taraba, Gombe and Adamawa States in northeast Nigeria, and speak the Dza...
Over the next few months, SIL will present our ongoing language and culture documentation efforts in some of the world's lesser-known languages in conjunction with the...
Bungu, a tonal language, now has a writing system ready for testing and literacy training. - Mbeya, Tanzania After years of research and testing, the Bungu team received...
If someone holds a book written in his own language but doesn’t know how to read the words, it’s like a starving person holding a fishing net without knowing how to use...
In Anabel’s Me’phaa-speaking town located high in the mountains of southern Mexico, there is no cell phone service. People use radios to communicate within the town...
Tales of towering waves and howling winds worried the Language Survey Team. Should they postpone the trip? Had village leaders received the letters that were sent ahead...
Children passed by on their way to school but Chanceline was only able to watch them. She would have loved to go to school with them but that was not possible...
Around the village and in the fields, many children perched on logs or stones to read and to try to copy th e letters. It had been two years since an alphabet for the...
When Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay, Hillary’s Sherpa guide, reached the summit of the world’s tallest mountain in 1953, the term sherpa soon became synonymous with “...
Leen Suma Adhikari has worked with SIL Bangladesh since April 2012 as a language and education officer. She facilitates teacher training and curriculum development...
Leti, a young Me’phaa woman from Zoquitlán, Mexico, recently attended an SIL-sponsored writers' workshop. Leti is working and attending college in Chilpancingo, the...