Strengthening the Miskitu and Mayangna Languages in Nicaragua Through Digital Media
Strengthening the Miskitu and Mayangna Languages in Nicaragua Through Digital Media
Translation posted 22 May 2016 19:33 GMT
This is the first post from the project “Miskitus and Mayangnas on the internet”, grantee winner of the 2015 Microgrant call to support digital activism initiatives for indigenous languages. The project is being carried out in Nicaragua, and seeks to strengthen local languages with the active participation of young people.
In the beginning, the project “Miskitus and Mayangnas on the Internet” consisted of a series of three workshops and two forums which focused on the creation of personalised media platforms for young people. Three workshops focused on students from the leadership school of URACCAN University, on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. There are 51 leadership students, ranging from ages 13 to 18. Most of the leadership students speak Miskitu although some are learning Mayangna, and there are some who prefer to speak Spanish and Nicaraguan English Creole.
The three original workshops included video editing, the construction of a digital dictionary, and an introduction to web design. All the projects had to include a bilingual component using both Spanish and an indigenous language (Miskitu or Mayangna). However, upon meeting with the new director of the Leadership School of URACCAN University, it became clear that the young people would need a Digital Media course instead of just three workshops in a month. The Director explained that many organisations and individuals from outside Nicaragua had come to offer workshops to the youth leadership students and they felt that the temporary interaction was not beneficial for their academic development.
We started to develop lesson plans including 3 different bilingual videos, 1 bilingual dictionary with 50 entries, and a bilingual website to show each of the students’ videos and dictionaries. URACCAN University offered to let the leadership students use 2 public computing labs that have internet access and the software MovieMaker, WeSay and Wix.com.
The first day of the new course “Digital Media” introduced all the projects and software that would be used throughout the course. The leadership students were able to explain their favourite hobbies, such as listening to music, playing sports and dancing. These turned into the topics for some of the videos. The students also enjoyed a traditional snack called “wabul“, which in this case is made of ripe plantain.
More:
https://rising.globalvoices.org/blog/2016/05/22/strengthening-the-miskitu-and-mayangna-languages-in-nicaragua-through-digital-media/