Forum for Language Initiatives, in collaboration with the Directorate of Professional Development (DPD), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa organized a three-day training for Primary School teachers of the Upper Chitral district in Booni. A total of 85 teachers, half of whom were women participated in the activity. The workshop aimed to enhance the teaching skills of govt schools’ teachers in newly inducted languages with a special focus on the Khowar language.

The government schools’ teachers are usually trained pre- or post-induction, and they are familiar with English and Urdu language books. Keeping in view the importance of the local language, FLI felt the need for training in Khowar Book teaching in primary schools.

The Khowar language has become part of primary education in the Chitral Valley as a subject and teachers find it challenging to encounter the unique sounds, characters, and orthography of the Khowar language. This training has explained many questions the participants had in their minds before they attended training sessions. Many of the participants expressed their views in the pre-training assessment that they were underestimating the importance of the activity, but it was encouraging that their perspective was changed in the post-training assessment.

The Khowar language is being taught as a subject up to Grade VI in Government Schools of KP. FLI initially executed a pilot project by training 85 school teachers, enhancing their skills in Khowar Book teaching as drawn above, and has a plan to cover the maximum number of teachers to make regional language teaching applicable and effective. The idea of inclusion of regional languages was initiated in 2016 and four regional languages; Pashto, Saraiki, Hindko, and Khowar have become part of the curriculum.

FLI adopted a cascade training module and trained Master Trainers from the local government schools’ teachers. Four men and four women attended FLI’s Master Trainers training process who were the master trainers for all 85 trainees. Earlier, FLI in collaboration with DPD carried out a Language Need Assessment (LNA) in Booni to baseline collect data on what was needed in the training which led to the Development of a comprehensive Training Manual which will be helpful for all languages.

The Master Trainers who facilitated this training have been playing a key role in this process from the very start and became a resource for not only FLI but also for DPD. Private schools in the area can also be facilitated by these trained master trainers in their local language. The KP government has issued instruction to private schools in the province to ensure the implementation of KP Cabinet’s notification regarding regional language teaching and FLI’s trained trainers can be handy in this regard. These all efforts will contribute to developing resources for Khowar language reading, writing, and literature development in the future.

Almost all children in Kalkoti language community in Dir Kohistan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa learn and speak their heritage language, a rare case in northern Pakistan. No age group in the community appears to be seen leaving their language for another. This was known in a vitality survey, FLI conducted in the last week of August 2023. For the activity, typically a five to six days long workshop is organized involving people from the community and start the discussion. Seven people from the Kalkoti speech community participated in the event as mother tongue facilitators who learned how to assess their native language’s vitality. The mother tongue facilitators then got out to the community and involved more people for larger assessment. A guide, Planning for the Future of Language was used during the workshop helping them plan how to strengthen the language in future in areas of literacy. This planning is based on the said assessment.

According to the results, the Kalkoti language was found to be sound in orality as mentioned that all the age groups, especially the young people were acquiring their language. What concerned the team is that almost all age groups were multilingual from the very childhood. Additionally, no written literature was available, however, Kalkoti speakers, with assistance from FLI have recently developed their writing system and it is hoped they will begin producing literature in their language soon.

At the end of the workshop, the participants developed a plan to promote their language. For the purpose, they are optimistic to find poets within their community to organize first ever Kalkoti Poetry Session in their village. FLI has assured them of its cooperation in strengthening their language.

The Kalkoti language, belonging to the Shina subgroup of the Dardic languages, is spoken in the Kalkot village of Upper Dir district. According to the community people, around 15,000 people speak Kalkoti as their native language.

FLI collaborated with the Initiative for People in Need (IPN), one of its partner organizations from the northern Pakistan to organize an essay writing competition in Indus Kohistani language community in Patan area of Kohistan on May 30, 2023. The activity was aimed at involving the youth in the language development process and making the young generation aware of the importance of using their native language for literature development. This was the first activity of its kind when the Indus Kohistani youth participated in a competition, held for writing their native language. In total, 26 students of Grade 10 from five schools, both private and public participated in the contest to write essays in their native language. The competition was based on spelling correctly, fluency and understanding of writing rules. The judges panel included Dr. HA Faizy and Molana Atif Ahmad Patanpuri who evaluated the efforts of participants. Both the judges are researchers of their language. Distinguished writers and literary persons from the Indus Kohistani group got the opportunity to speak to the youth regarding the language and literature. The office bearers of IPN appreciated the efforts of young people who showed their interest to write their native language. They asked the participants to use their language on social media and to motivate people in their circle to do so. Later, awards were distributed among high performers of the contest.

The Indus Kohistani language researchers have recently resolved some of the orthography issues hindering their language. People working with IPN are constantly pursuing the goal of strengthening their language in literature development.

Indus Kohistani is an endangered Dardic language of the Indo-Aryan family, spoken by about 400,000 persons according to the census of 2017. It is mainly spoken in the Bankad, Ranolia, Dubair, Jijal, Pattan, Kayal areas of district Kohistan lower and Seo and Kandia areas of district Kohistan Upper, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa.

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FLI collaborated with Idara Baraye Taleem wa Taraqi-IBT, a civil society organization, working for the the promotion and development of Torwali language to organize a ‘Yarak” (session) with Torwali community based in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The event was attended by Torwali youth, Students, Torwali notables from Pindi/Islamabad, Torwali business men and Torwali poets and singers. The primary aim of the session was to motivate and mobilise the Torwali community regarding revitalization of Torwali language and reconnecting them with their culture while living in urban area of the country.

The participants were briefed about the purpose of holding the event while issues relating to language, identity, and the way forward were also part of the discussion. The participants also expressed their views about the holding of the event and thanked both IBT and FLI for providing this opportunity for them. They also vowed to hold such events in the future. Torwali books published by IBT were also distributed among the participants.

The event ended with Torwali music where different genres of Torwali music were played both traditional and modern. The audience were overjoyed by the live music which was first of its kind in Pindi/Islamabad. More the 70 people representing all age groups attended the event.

FLI supported Dameli language group, living in Karachi to get together for a cultural festival aiming to reconnect them with their language and culture. The event, ‘Jashn-e-Daman’, or the Festival of Dameli People was organized under the auspices of the Anjuman Taraqi Damyan (ATD), the newly established organization by the migrant Dameli speakers in the city. ATD has been founded to work for strengthening of their language as the Dameli speakers in Karachi are feared to break away from their language. More than 200 people attended the event. Earlier, a tournament of traditional games of Dameli culture was held at Secretariat Ground in Norther Nazimabad featuring native games like Khosal, Chemtaekh, Kelimastrang, Pilat, Shel, Danda Goli, etc. which were participated by almost age groups of the community, many of young Dameli speakers were participating in their traditional games for the first time in their life.

The participants were initially briefed about the importance of revitalization of their mother language while living out of their native place. Few speeches delivered in their language. They were also enlightened of the language development work and introduced to the publications developed so far in their language. At the end, a poetry session was organized which was the most liked and appreciated item of the festival. A dozen of Dameli poets who came from various parts of the city expressed themselves in their language and entertained the crowed. Although, all items of the festival were new to the participants in the metropolitan city but poetry session in Dameli was much loved by the audience.

The purpose of the event was to relink Dameli migrants in the city with their language and culture. FLI has been supporting this kind of initiatives as the migrant people are prone to language shift due to being influenced by the major languages and the community people being out of their native environment. We hope that the Dameli group would continue to engage in language and culture related activities in future and this event would not be the last one but would play a role of the starter.