The IRA supports the SRWP!

The Seli River Writing Project is delighted to have received a Developing Economy Literacy Project grant from the International Reading Association to support the Young Writers clubs during the 2012-2013 school year! It lifts such a load off our heads to know that some of our expenses will be paid, and we can concentrate on carrying out goals. Read about the award at this page.  Hurray for the IRA!

Five Writing Lessons

Five Writing Lessons, a program of the Heritage Writers project, has begun at SELI! The opening unit is Kuranko, and the first of the five lessons took place today at SELI. Thanks to sponsorship from individuals from many parts of the world, we plan to conduct a unit of five writing lessons in as many Sierra Leone languages as possible.

Each class has up to sixteen participants. All should be primary language speakers of the language of any age who have reached or completed junior secondary school, and who are interested in authoring books in their language. The class is offered free of charge.

We are seeking funding for the next stage in the Heritage Writers project, which will support the writing efforts of these would-be mother-tongue authors, and take them onto publication. Exciting, no? Be a part of it by contributing at www.seli.co. Click on "DONATE" to make your payment through PayPal.

A Notice Board for Services JSS, Wilberforce

Today SELI donated a notice board to Services Junior Secondary School in Wilberforce, so everyone in the school can read the pieces of writing they are producing. The donation was made possible by a grant from the Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy.

Jackie Leigh, SELI's director, has been running the Young Writers club at Services since 2008, but this year, teachers from the school have taken over as its facilitators. Here we see one of the teachers, Mr. M. Kanu, with the principal, Mrs. S. Kenny (right), and the secretary of the school. The second facilitator, Mr. A. Sheriff, is not in the photo.

Heritage Writers is on the move!

Twice as many people as last year attended SELI's International Mother Language Day 2012 event on February 21st. About half were students, making very serious efforts to write in their mother tongues as these two girls are, writing in Kono and Krio.

Keep checking back for updates! Many participants were interested in the tutoring lessons for which we have been able to gain sponsorship. That program will be underway soon.

Sponsor a Writer! (a Heritage Writers initiative)

Let's Write in our Mother Languages

It is said that there are some eighteen indigenous languages spoken in Sierra Leone. Orthographies have been approved for four of these: Mende, Themne, Limba and Krio. Some junior secondary schools offer one or more of these languages as elective subjects, so there is a chance that a fortunate child might learn to read and write his/her mother tongue while in junior secondary school.

But what if that mother tongue is one of the many "unwritten" languages in Sierra Leone? What do children burning to write in their mother tongues do when educators tell them that writing programs cannot be established for languages that lack approved orthographies?

Read our article advocating for writing in mother languages: http://www.seli.co/seli-forum/seli-editorials

Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of SL PEN

SELI hosts and chairs the Translation and Linguistic Rights Committee of Sierra Leone PEN, and has just developed this brochure which expresses the committee's vision of what it would like to accomplish.

Are these your interests, too? Contact SL PEN at the numbers given in the brochure and let them know about your support. And do join SELI in its annual celebration of International Mother Language Day every February 21st at 14F Clarke St., Tengbeh Town!

Content Conferences are at the Heart of it All

Content conferences are where voices are drawn out. Middle school authors are reading their work aloud for feedback from their peers and from teacher Abu B.S. Marah in this Young Writers content conference at Ahmadiyya Muslim Agricultural Secondary School, Kabala in Sierra Leone. It's the first month of a new year for the SELI Young Writers club at AMASS, and half the group are newcomers just arrived from primary school.

The students are either getting feedback on first or second drafts, so they can move on to better revision or editing. All the clubs have new editing corners this year, with SELI's donation of two new dictionaries. It's rough this year with no grants to support the Seli River Writing Project,but we are carrying on!

Young Voices 2.1

Find out what all the SLWP Young Writers clubs are doing by reading the latest edition of Young Voices here:

There is a need for writers!

SELI is pleased to be a member of this steering committee, otherwise known as the Opportunity Schools Project, and Books Sierra Leone, of which CODE Canada is one of the implementers. Learn more about this project here: http://www.codecan.org/blog/?p=126.