We know that local language communication is vital for effective development action. This is basic, intuitive reasoning of course. But, specific to India there is also compelling research data, for example: Political Economy of Government Responsiveness: Theory and Evidence from India - a bit old but still relevant. This recent blog posted on The Communication Initiative platform: Mother tongue: boosting maternal health through mobile phones provides further compelling insights about the vital nature of local language communication in all senses - not just translation but resonance with local, cultural "touchstones" through those languages. Question: How do you assess the attention and priority that Development agencies have provided for local language as a communication priority? Please do comment and share your perspectives.
Comments
Local Language really plays a crucial role in social-change
First of all thank you so much for this interesting and most important topic that has been raised up for discussion. Very happy to read the real experiences and how you all are doing the good work in managing to make communication easy for all to access the crucial services and things which are available for the beneficiaries.
We have a non-profit organization Colorss which works in Baroda, Gujarat and Pune, Maharasthra. Here we have to use primarily two languages for making it sure that our projects, educational services, workshops and psychological counseling are successful. Gujarati is used in Baroda and Marathi is used in Pune. Hindi and English languages are used however to make them understand everything in detail and with clarity regional language is mandatory. We have different methods and techniques to train the participants - visual, audio, through puppet shows, through drawings and in both the cities local languages are used extensively.
We are providing self-defense training under our project Mission 1000 across India for free to all the women and girls who can't afford these services. We have to make sure that we have local volunteers who can help translate everything in their respective language so that the training is successful and the participant learn 5-6 self-defense techniques. We also have a stand-alone self-defense app for android. Internet is required only once to download this application. However, this application is pictorial and step-by-step. But the description is in English. We are looking out options where this language barrier can be solved with better technical solutions. Our application is designed by volunteers so we have some limitations to the same. Have a look at the application over here - Colorss' Qucik Self-Defense App
With our experiences so far, knowledge about and ability to use regional language is important for effective communication. With given all the variations, techniques and creativity for alternative ways to communicate and train - regional language yet, remains the base requirement for the same. India is amazing at every 100 Kms the language dialect keeps changing. We need to be aware, connected and understand the root language for that particular area.
Excited to read more informative thoughts which would be shared.
Regards,
Anand
The Puppet talks.....
Local language has its own importance, particulary when we are working in a country like India. Because expert cannot explain everything, so we need some local experts who can handle the session. While working with Care India, I experienced Marwari is only the language which is understood by most of the people and next to this hindi comes as a medium of communciation.
In this regard,we have developed a puppet program is desgined by us in Marwari laguage to overcome from the communication barrier and contextulized it local format with some technical issues focusing on gender and cross cutting issues of power relation. Very soon we witnessed this programs penetration into the local areas and laid a long lasting impact on awareness component and we beleive it came due to incroporation of the local language in the program implementation.
Language : Generative scope for Participatory Global Development
Kudos to this ‘eye-opener’ thread which unfolds , the tremendous potential lying ahead, by way of putting focus on ‘Local Language’ and its multitudes in the context of communication for development. Firstly, it is so informative, educative, suggestive and hence ‘generative’ too in terms of scope of development and related strategies in a local, regional, national and global context, when it comes to unleashing a wide spectrum of technologies, voice-based, mobile/internet, , community radio and other appropriate tools and apps. Also, such unleashing of technology is sure to generate a lot of learning for development practitioners and communities proving to be an effective two-way process eventually producing positive ripple effects and the scope for rapid cross-pollination of best practices at various levels.
Hitherto impossible ways of stringing together ‘people’s thoughts hidden behind a phenomenal range of dialects’ have of-late been fathomed by way of 'technology' making in-roads to every nook and corner of India and increasing the scope of improving the participatory nature of development per se. It is therefore bound to become more and more generative in the future, while deriving at solutions and tackling complex developmental issues caused by this very multiplicity of dialects.
Synergy building by way of bringing together an interesting range of technology based innovations and solutions extending to grassroots development initiatives and creating corresponding synergies at ‘multi-stakeholder’ levels vis-a-vis various facets of development, are bound to produce faster achievement of outcomes towards our envisioned sustainable development goals.
We at Women’s Synergy (an evolving, Delhi-based organization for empowering women through ‘Synergies & Symbiotic relationships’ among women from varied backgrounds) would definitely like to explore opportunities for synergy building with organizations inclined to help our women’s groups transcend their current levels of individual and collective levels of achievement through the adoption of the wonderful, relevant, latest technological aids and apps in use today.
Vaidehi Krishnan, Women's Synergy,
Delhi, India. E-mail: info@womensynergy.org
Grassroots Comics: promoting local languages by local creators !
Interestingly, I received notification about this thread while I am running a grassroots comics workshop here in Chhattisgarh, one of the states in India, where tribal population is in good number but unfortunately less representation in all areas. The medium of text book and school education here is Hindi, while there are close to hundred dialects in the region and many of them vanishing fast. Southern part of the state speaks languages like Halbi and Bhatri but there is no content available or many of these teachers don't speak the language of what the majority of the students understand. While World Comics India is extensively using 'Grassroots Comics as a teaching learning tool' to improve the quality of education. Here in current workshop we are helping teachers to develop their own comics in these two languages and cutomise the text book content according to their need.
Grassroots Comics being a cost effective medium (since we use only A-4 size papers and create comics only in Black & White mode) is sustainable. Teachers don't require any resources or support from any agency to create content further in their classroom.
They have already made comics on local poem, saying, stories and also developed their visual cum local languages dictionary. This would not only help to preserve the language but would also help student to gradually understand Hindi, without that majority of them were not able to continue their studies after middle school.
Hello sharadVery pleased
Hello sharad
Very pleased with the work you are doing with passion. Comics have a big scope in motivating semi literate people. Good luck to you and your team. Mridula seth
ZMQ using MIRA Channel
At ZMQ we have established a talking toolkit, MIRA Channel, on RMNCH+A for mternal, Adolescent and Child Health with a universal health communication approach using not only local language and context but also building an iconioc interface using local context for semi-literate and people with low literacy. We have used gaming techniques to communicate. The tool kit has user customised Prenatal Care channel, Immunization channel, Family Planning tools, Neo-natal care tools, tools for adolescent girls and also Story telling and games on issues related to subject. The tool is available in Hindi in local dialectys and local iconic context. We are also right now building it Uganda in Lugandi and Rotaru languages and Pushto and Dari for Afghanistan. It is also very important to build such tools with local community participation, who understand the context and all the dos and donts.
To learn more you may visit www.Mirachannel.org
Best
Subhi
Local language and voice based technologies for India
Over a period of last five to six years, development partners in India have realised the potential of ‘local language/ dialect’ and ‘voice’ based tools to reach out to the communities. For communities with low literacy rates and access to mobile internet, both become extremely important.
OneWorld in India has always emphasised on using appropriate technologies to deliver key messages to the people in remote areas of the country.
In 2006, we launched Lifelines Agriculture – an IVR based helplines for farmers of two agro-climatic zones i.e. Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand. Primarily, the helpline is run in Hindi language while people can ask questions in local dialects too. The uniqueness of this initiative lies in its ability to search a database of over 600,000 FAQs based on voice commands, that too in local language.
Continuing our experiment with IVR systems, we started Lifelines Education in 2009 – a helpline for teachers in the state of Rajasthan. See this film
In 2010, we developed an info kiosk for workers of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). Again a voice based (Hindi) and icon driven info kiosk deployed in Bhilwara, Rajasthan helped neo-literate villagers to identify worksite, demand job under MGNREGS, collect details of work done (print receipt), wages etc. See this film
In 2013, we developed another info kiosk (Nyayapath) to disseminate information on rights and entitlements of poor and marginalised communities in the state of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Under Access to Justice Programme of Government of India, these voice driven info kiosks provide information to the people about their key entitlements, legal rights and welfare schemes (12 categories) in three languages and dialect i.e. Chhattisgarhi, Santhali and Hindi. Located at District Level State Legal Service Authority offices in these two states, the main idea is to provide free legal aid to people in need. We also conducted a successful pilot to facilitate voice browsing and navigation through the content using Intel’s RealSense® technology. See a demo on Nyayapath website
Since most of our technology users and audiences are in rural India, the use of local languages and dialects become indispensable. The one need to customise the technology and create content with local participation to suit it to the requirements of local communities.
Recently, I helped a Delhi based social enterprise to develop a Mobile App for training of Community Radio reporters, volunteers etc. The Radio Saathi (Radio Friend) App available in public domain through Google Play can be used by any Community Radio station in the country. A rough estimate shows that Community Radio stations in India broadcast their content in at least 57 languages and dialects. The biggest challenge while developing this App was to ensure that it remains highly customisable and user-friendly. Hence, we developed it in such a way that the icons, navigation text, narration, animations and content can be changed by the user based on its requirement. Try this App on your Android Mobile
Also, visit EK duniya anEK awaaz - an audio and knowledge exchange platform for Comunity Radio stations in India - to see how Community Radio stations are breaking linguistic barrier to provide a barrier free (not really!) media environment to their communities.
For more, please feel free to contact me at tejprakash.yadav@oneworld.net
User Generated Content
Having closely observed and participated in the shaping of Community Media sphere in India for the past 5 years I feel that development organizations are increasingly understanding the importance of content in local languages and dialects. A relevant example being the rise of hyperlocal Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems in various states of India where users generate content in their own local dialect. These IVR systems have been spearheaded as a Mobile based Community Media platform by Gram Vaani. Many development agencies and civil society organizations have partnered with Gram Vaani over the past 5 years to effectively reach out to their "target audiences" on various issues in the regions where this service is available. At the most basic level of engagement/partnership, these organizations use Gram Vaani's popular Social Campaigns service that solicits and curates user generated content (in local language) making it contextually relevant for people's understanding and effective development action.
Language vs Literacy
In the current context in nations still grippling with literacy and language as a major barrier of communication, especially given we have more hindi speakers in the world than english, language definitely is a major communication priority. Internet for example is reaching everywhere but still we are grippling with language translations and transitions over the internet, making usage a big challenge despite access being there. Here is a very interesting read given current Indian context.
In such situations, language becomes as much as a development agenda as a communication agenda. Linking the two is extremely critical for development goals to be achieved. Only a few systems have realised this and given India's history of multiple languages, it becomes even more important to bring it out for fastening the pace towards sustainable development.
Local languages: This is an interesting topic.
This is an interesting topic. Thank you for providing the link to the article by Besley and Burgess. The dialects in India are so many and there may not be any language experts who can tell you everything. I think Mobile Kunji is doing it right. They are asking someone local to record for them and then pilot testing it with local people as well. Additionally, they can seek more feedbacks after a few days of launch.
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