Bai Literacy Project

A Co-operative Venture with Local Authorities

The Bai Literacy Project is a six year co-operative venture between SIL and the Yunnan Province Language Affairs Commission. It has the active involvement of the Jianchuan County Education and Culture Bureaus, who have committed, amongst other things, to providing and staffing the project office. SIL is providing the primary funding for this project with local authorities contributing minimally.

In mid-2002 Brian and Liz Billard arrived in Jianchuan to begin work to establish the Bai Literacy Project. Liz brings several decades of experience in education and music, and her PhD focus upon literacy among rural women in China. Brian has long experience in management in a variety of forms, including management of new ventures, community developments, and education-related projects.

Project Strategy

As a pilot program, the project is deliberately focused upon a single mountain village with high educational and economic needs, but one which is located at the strategic cultural centre of Shibaoshan. Consequently, the potential exists for the benefits of the project to receive wide publicity across the whole of the Jianchuan dialect group. Hence, significant elements of the project are deliberately planned to link into the existing strong cultural bent towards singing among the people of Shibaoshan.

Three Streams

Within Shilong village, the program will train three groups of people in Bai literacy:

• singers, artists, storytellers, and potential project teachers;
• preschool children in a two year program designed to give them a grounding of literacy in Bai before they reach primary school;
• parents, particularly mums, who have key influential roles in the home, but who have missed educational opportunities in the past.

Each of these three streams is linked so that: together they can develop a culture of literacy within the village; and the program’s benefits can be broadcast right across the dialect group.

Progress and Plans

An adult literacy primer has been produced in Bai. One workshop was held for teachers and others using this primer to learn to read Bai. This was a very successful workshop and gives great hope for the future of the project. A writers’ workshop was also held where those attending the first workshop also began to write down stories and other literature using their mother tongue, Bai. Currently, project staff is working on preparing materials for the preschool program. The preschool started in Shilong village in Fall 2006.