FLI for the first time, with the partnership of Payap University, Thailand, was able to offer a year-long course to any of its language development trainees that provided a certificate from an accredited international university. This was very valuable partnership FLI has had in its history which enhanced organizational management skills of the participants. 12 participants from eight language communities; three from south and nine from north Pakistan benefited from the program.

The main objectives of the 13 credit course, among many were:

• Introducing the participants to the interplay of interpersonal skills and diversity in an organizational setting;
• Ability to identify the benefits and challenges of a diverse work environment and understand the unifying and motivating effect that effective core values can have on an organization;
• Understanding the system thinking and identity the strengths and weaknesses in their organizational systems;
• Identification of the essential habits of high performing teams and ways to strengthen the effective habits of their teams etc.

The certificates were awarded to the trainees in Islamabad on 12 Apr 2017. FLI also distributed experience certificates among those who facilitated the course while the services of our Language Consultant and Training Coordinator were appreciated and honoured by presenting them shields from Executive Director of FLI.

Another Khowar Book “Khowar Muhavirey” (Khowar Idioms) has been brought up by Mr. Afsar Ali Khan, a language researcher from Chitral (Khowar). This collection of Khowar Idioms is the second book from this young writer who has translated the native idioms into Urdu. He wrote “Khowar Matalan Gurzain” last year by collecting Khowar Proverbs. Both of his books have been published by FLI along with providing the writer other technical services; designing.

(Islamabad) A three day Community of Practice (CoP) “Advocating for Minority Language groups in Pakistan” was held last week in Rawalpindi. The main objective of this CoP, among other was to establish a common understanding of the concept of voice and advocacy, exploring how advocacy is important for social change and development. 15 members from partner CBOs in northern Pakistan attended it.

Gilgit is the capital city of Gilgit-Baltistan and home to seven beautiful languages, with Shina as the lingua franca. Among the other six languages is Burushaski, a language incredibly unique due to its not belonging to any known family of languages. It was in this city of particularly unique linguistic diversity that FLI held a six day workshop titled “Planning for the Future of Your Language” specifically intended for the Shina speech community in mid-July. Four members from the Shina speech community participated in the program, giving their full time and attention during these six days to identifying the current status of their language. They also committed to play any role they can to bring their mother tongue to a point first  of sustainable orality, then sustainable literacy. The participants included young journalists, a drama writer, students, and a poet of Urdu and Shina. The FLI team was glad to work with a group of enthusiastic people who loved their culture and language and were eager to help them reach their goals for their mother tongue.

The FLI team also met various people during the advocacy meeting that was held concurrent with the workshop, which included a visit to Karakuram International University, Gilgit. FLI plans to hold an MLE conference in this prestigious university next year, and in order to gather information and build relationships toward that purpose, they met with several relevant people and discussed related issues with them.

As part of this group of activities in Gilgit, FLI held a half day seminar for the local journalists in Gilgit on 27 July 2016. The program was held at the Gilgit Press Club and all the members of the local journalist’s forum were invited, more than two dozen of whom attended the event. The purpose of the Media Seminar was to sensitize the journalist fraternity towards the regional languages of Gilgit-Baltistan and issues related to these language communities. Various presentations were given on these regional languages, their issues and potential positive ways of addressing these issues, the impact of early childhood mother tongue based multilingual education, and the role of the media in the preservation and promotion of regional languages. UNESCO’s short film on MTB-MLE was also displayed. As a result of this event, many journalists of Gilgit are now aware of their languages’ assets and have resolved to highlight the issues of local language communities in the future. They were asked to press their policy makers to legislate in favor of language promotion in Gilgit-Baltistan. These FLI activities in Gilgit were well covered by the local media and seemed to be appreciated by linguists of the Shina language as well as many others in the region.

The Executive Director of FLI, Mr. Fakhruddin Akhunzada, called on representatives of the Ushojo language community yesterday in Madyan, Swat. He congratulated them for having their language, Ushojo, documented under a project which FLI recently concluded. The Ushojo people paid great tribute to the Forum for Language Initiatives for documenting their language and giving the language a written form. The Ushojo people are happy to write in their mother tongue for the first time and poets, writers and researchers from this community who were trained by FLI have started writing their views in their language. They are now also teaching other people to read and write in their own language.