The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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LubutoLiteracy

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The Lubuto Library Project, Inc.,  (LLP) is a development initiative that, in cooperation with governments, has the goal of creating opportunities for equitable education and poverty reduction through model library services housed in indigenously styled buildings. Lubuto Libraries are based upon traditional Zambian approaches, rather than western educational systems, by which African children learn about the world and their place in it. Beyond its libraries, the Lubuto Project works to identify and bring traditional Zambian stories back into print. LubutoLiteracy is an Etoys-based programme ("Etoys is a child-friendly computer environment and object-oriented prototype-based programming language for use in education." - information from Wikipedia) created by Zambian children and teachers with organisational and technical work done through United States (US) volunteers and students.

Communication Strategies

As part of LLP's eIFL.net Public library Innovation Initiative, Zambian reading teachers have been creating Etoys games that are designed to teach children to read in 7 Zambian languages on the libraries' One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO laptops. Teachers are trained to create these reading Etoys programmes by Lubuto staff and partners, and work with children who have been using the OLPC laptops in Lubuto Libraries to create them. The children also create the computer graphics. The youth in Zambia who created and illustrated the designs for the LubutoLiteracy lessons earned school fees to allow them to complete secondary school.

 

These 700 Etoys-based LubutoLiteracy lessons are intended to promote literacy throughout the African continent. For example, work has been done on Bemba and Nyanja phoneme recognition projects for the XO and on reading games in Cinyanja and Icibemba. The computer-based reading lessons are in the 7 major Zambian languages and based on the Zambian school reading curriculum, so as to teach children to read in their mother tongue. There are 100 lessons in each Zambian language.  To each of these, a sound file, recorded in the 7 languages for each lesson and giving instructions on what to do with each lesson, will be added by the volunteers.

 

As of December 2011, 20 members of the Washington, DC, US, chapter of the Special Libraries Association are volunteering to put final touches on the lessons created by the teachers and youth in Zambia. Lubuto's technical partner will also be adding Creative Commons licenses so that the lessons may be adapted by others.  After completion, the LubutoLiteracy lessons will be uploaded to the LubutoCollections.org website, which is currently being developed for this purpose by Drexel University i-School (Philadelphia, PA, US) volunteers.  From there, they can be accessed and used anywhere or translated to other African languages for use in other countries.

Development Issues

Education

Key Points

Lubuto Libraries partners with the Zambian Government and is working with the newly established Ministry of Education, Science, and Vocational Training. It continues to work with the old and new education establishment in Zambia on the plans for scaling up its services in partnership with the Zambia Library Service. For the third time, Lubuto has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA), administered by the Swedish Arts Council.

Partners

Zambian Goverment, Zambia Library Service.

Sources

Lubuto Library Project Newsletter No. 21 and website, December 1 2011.