South East Asia Church Based Literacy Project
Project 8818
There is a great need for Multilingual Education for members of the Bunong communities in Mondulkiri, Cambodia. Most Bunong people cannot read or write, even in their own language, so the literacy needs are great. Northeast Community Education and Development Organization (NCED) is committed to supporting the communities with these needs.
The Church Based Literacy Program is assisting the Bunong people in two main ways:
- The implementation of the Bunong literacy program in the churches is directly addressing the community’s low literacy rates while helping to sustain their language and their customs. Literacy rates need to increase in the country’s official language in order to support dealings with authorities and commercial organisations so that the communities’ interests are protected. Literacy rates also need to improve in the Bunong language so that their language and culture can be preserved for future generations.
- Running the literacy program through the local churches means that the Bunong people can be supported to read Scripture in their own language. The program works directly with 12 Bunong churches and the participants in the various programs include children, youth, adults and elderly people.
More recently, the Bunong communities have been affected by the COVID-19 global pandemic and there has been an urgent need to communicate health advice to better protect them from outbreaks and to manage any cases that develop. NCED has been doing this important work with translated written materials and visits to villages (when permitted).
Ambon Scripture Engagement Project
Project 8817
The Ambonese Malay New Testament has been published and was officially launched in September 2022! But publication is not the end of this story. God has brought together an enthusiastic team of local Scripture engagement workers to promote the new translation and help people to use it and apply it in their lives.
The Ambonese Scripture Engagement team is passionate about seeing God’s Word at work among the people of Maluku. The team is highly sought after for their training workshops that are designed to meet the needs of local churches. Topics include trauma healing, parenting, overcoming addiction, using local language in ministry, conflict resolution and more. At each workshop the team teaches, prays and leads worship in Ambonese Malay, enabling participants to experience the impact of God’s Word in their own language.
An important part of their work during 2023 will be running a series of workshops to introduce the newly published Ambonese Malay New Testament to churches and showing how it can be used in teaching and discipleship.
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Budget target: AU$16,000 per year
Excess funds will go towards the following year’s target.
Tampuan NT Publication
The Tampuan New Testament was completed recently and is now being typeset ready for publication. The Tampuan people are a group of 30,000 in South East Asia. There are small churches in a number of villages. These churches have been using trial portions that we have been making available and they are now eagerly awaiting having the complete New Testament in their language.
The other desire of the Tampuan Christians is to have a songbook in their language. The local Tampuan churches have compiled about 80 hymns and Christian songs into a book and have almost finished editing it. A small amount of additional funding would enable the printing of these songbooks for distribution amongst the Tampuan churches.
We require $A18,500 to cover printing costs for approximately 700 New Testaments, and 500-700 songbooks.
Bunong Old Testament Translation
Project 8327
The Bunong communities in Cambodia celebrated the completion and release of their New Testament in May 2016. As Christians noticed the big difference that reading the New Testament in Bunong made, they began discussing how they might also have an Old Testament.
When different groups met together they discovered many people were excited about the prospect of having the Old Testament in their own language. In a proposal to their larger church body, they requested help and outlined their commitment of time, energy, food and funds towards an OT translation. The church authorities passed on the request.
The desire by the local church to translate the whole Bible, along with their commitment of resources to help make it possible, excited the Australian team who will once again be contributing both resources and skills to assist the local team.
As a partner, Wycliffe is planning to make an annual contribution of $7,500 towards travel, accommodation and meals to help teams of Bunong translators gather together six times each year.
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Our partnership target for 2023 is $6,650
If we receive extra funds, this will go towards next year’s target.
Papuan Malay Distribution Team Support
Project 8525
Papuan Malay is the language of wider communication spoken by 2 million people in the Indonesian province of Papua. The Papuan Malay Bible translation team has a goal of distributing 1 million Scripture forms (books, social media hits, Jesus Film views on YouTube, Scripture app downloads, oral Bible stories etc) before completing the New Testament, so that people are aware of, already using and hungry for Scripture in Papuan Malay before the New Testament is available as a complete publication in 2028. For this to be achieved, a robust and wide-reaching distribution, church networking and Scripture engagement program is essential and a major focus at the current stage of the project.
The Papuan Malay Distribution team is comprised of five local team members and one facilitator from Wycliffe South Korea. They are working hard to run Sunday School and oral Bible storytelling workshops, supply stock for bookstores, church ministries and individuals, visit local churches to raise awareness about Papuan Malay, network with church leaders, do live-streaming and radio broadcast, recruit volunteer distributors, and network with people in other parts of the province. They are investing in building relationships and partnerships at the church denominational and local congregational level with the goal of increased local ownership and widespread use of Papuan Malay materials and the New Testament when it is published.
The project will cover wages for the five local Distribution Team members so that they can continue their vital work.
“The team in West Papua has been going from strength to strength in recent years, as more and more people use the growing Papuan Malay language, and ask for Scripture materials to be made available to them in the language. Wycliffe Australia has had members involved in this work for many years and we’re delighted to be supporting the team to keep growing. After consultation recently with the Papuan Malay Team, we will move to assisting them by targeting our funding directly towards the wages of the Distribution Team. This will ensure employment of the Distribution Team members so that they can distribute the Scripture materials that have recently been printed and recorded. It will also free up funds to be used to enable other activities to take place – such as printing more materials for the Distribution Team to distribute, and Scripture engagement activities to teach people how to use and understand the materials. As our support is changing slightly there will be a name change to “Papuan Malay Distribution Team Support” from April 2023. If you have any queries about this change in funding target please feel free to contact us at projects-admin@wycliffe.org.au . “
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Our partnership target for 2023 is $18,825
If we receive extra funds, this will go towards next year’s target.
South Asia 2 – Literacy WRDF
Project 8888
Literacy work is being supported among two language communities as they eagerly anticipate the completion of their own alphabets. Further discussions and an orthography workshop were recently held for these groups to help them develop writing systems for language documentation.
See the Wycliffe Foundation website for more information.
This project is managed by Wycliffe’s partner organisation Wycliffe Relief & Development Foundation. The funds will be directed to them.
Mayoyao Multilingual Education project – Philippines
Project 8935
This project aims to build capacity in national teachers by supporting them to develop teaching principles and reading materials in their local Mayoyao language. These materials will be used to help students from Kindergarten to Grade 3 develop foundational literacy skills in their local language before also acquiring the national languages of Filipino and English.
Sixty teachers will participate in a series of workshops over three years (2017-2019) to create reading materials and other literacy resources in the Mayoyao language. Project funds will be used to provide stationery materials and access to literacy trainers who can offer technical advice as teachers create reading texts. These materials will then be made freely available to other schools, with workshop teachers equipped to train colleagues in using and creating their own texts to enhance student literacy and learning.
Read more about this project
This project is managed by Wycliffe’s partner organisation SILA. The funds will be directed to them.
Kon Translation
Project 8321
Kon* is a translation project in a sensitive part of South Asia involving Australian members and mother tongue translators. There are 750,000 speakers with 4% of the Kon population Christian and growing fast.
The translation is a high priority project as the Scriptures are needed to disciple a young church. It also has the potential to expand to oral and/or written adaption into another four dialects.
This ongoing project has an estimated completion date of 2022.
*pseudonym
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Our partnership target for 2023 is $28,102
If we receive extra funds, this will go towards next year’s target
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