International Literacy and Development

In 2023, ILAD conducted activities in 12 countries. ILAD has programs operating in literacy and development in 10 countries. ILAD is conducting language research and market analysis in 2 other countries; program design and implementation will begin once thorough research is completed. In the Middle East, ILAD staff is focused on literacy and life-skills education among an overlooked, underserved minority language group. Micro enterprise: Seven women entrepreneurs were involved in creating and running a jewelry micro-enterprise that provides steady, supplemental income for their families. Literacy: Using the alphabet created and tested in 2021, there are currently 2 literacy classes being conducted for both the local language and the language of wider use. A local woman trained as a literacy facilitator is teaching the women's class. This literacy teacher has also begun a class with 12 local school age students to help them improve their literacy skills. Health: In the first quarter of 2023, ILAD staff served 70+ families with weekly vegetable distribution in an overlooked, underserved minority language group. Social: ILAD staff meet with women and men in groups to discuss ways to improve their personal and community relationships. Language Development: 1 language development project underway to provide oral, written, and digital resources for a different minority language community in the region. In Central Asia, 18 adults and 11 children engaged in ILAD's pilot Refugee Education and Assistance program created to provide learning opportunities that are denied refugees residing in this country. Relief: 400+ Ukrainian and Roma people were taught tactical first aid in order to serve those injured in the ongoing conflict.350+ people were served in medical clinics as healthcare providers and hospitals are not readily available to many people in communities hardest hit by the war.100 Roma children given backpacks and school suppliesand over $5,000 was used to assist in the care of refugees and internally displaced peoples. In a West African nation, a new Demonstration Farm was established to teach organic pineapple agriculture and production. This rural program is patterned after the current demonstration farm and includes agricultural training, social business management, and agro- credit programming. In the Arabian Peninsula and another Caucasus Region country, ILAD staff are researching language and culture, conducting market analysis, and developing projects.

Dallas, Texas, is home to a large refugee population, many of whom speak minority languages with no access to written or audio texts in their primary language. ILAD works with the Rohingya refugee community in the areas of ESL, literacy, citizenship, and health education. ILAD is also involved in preserving and promoting the Rohingya language and is currently collecting language data to be used in the production of a Rohingya dictionary and the development of apps for smartphones and computers. ESL and Citizenship: 48 Rohingya refugee families participated in ESL and/or Citizenship Classes. 2 Rohingya teachers were trained to teach their own community members. Citizenship curriculum has been shared with the refugee community in Houston. Literacy and Education: ILAD created a YouTube channel that hosts videos covering a variety of important topics as well as English learning tools, all in the Rohingya language. There are over 4200 subscribers. Additionally, ILAD partnered with Sesame Street Education to translate 8 books into Rohingya. ILAD also partnered with Books Unbound to create the first standardized Rohingya Dictionary. Business Development: The ILAD DFW Business Development Center (BDC) increases the dignity and well-being of refugees who want to start businesses through a package of capacity-building guidance services designed specifically for refugees. Participants achieve financial confidence and credit-worthiness, get funded, and launch a business which produces regular income for their household. In 2023, 40 entrepreneurial Arabic speaking refugee clients participated in business development training with 30 reporting higher credit scores after applying their new knowledge.3 of those participants launched their own businesses and are on the path to financial stability.

Human Language Technology: ILAD continued advancing the field of Human Language Technology through data collection, app development, and the creation of translation development tools, with the goal of providing access to information to low-resource language communities through machine translation. In 2023, ILAD made significant strides in developing AI-based tools to create high quality datasets for machine translation system building. These AI-based tools synthesize newly collected data (e.g., see below), existing linguistic resources, and the expertise of professional linguists to train the machine translation systems. South Asia: ILAD developed and deployed a mobile app to rapidly collect words to build local language dictionaries. The apppaired Gondi words (and their dialectical variants) with either Hindi orTelugu. The result was 37,095 wordsfrom 8 dialects added to a database,in order fora dictionary to be built and submitted for language for recognition. The Gondi language is not recognized as an officiallanguage in India, andin order tobe recognized, it must have a10,000-worddictionary. Southeast Asia: ILAD developed and deployed a tool to collect and validate sentence-level language data, pairing a low-resource language with a language of wider communication. Tested in three separate and differently structured languages, this tool is set for marked expansion in 2024. Asia: In 2023, ILAD staff, in partnership with a local entity, developed a morphological generator in an under-resourced language group and language data is being collected to facilitate machine translation from this language into a majority language. Central Asia: In 2023, ILAD continued the work with the Kist community in Central Asia. Woolaroo, a picture dictionary building mobile app, has been deployed and is collecting words and audio to preserve this language. See www.kist-language.com. This project has also involved the development of the Kist language orthography. U.S: ILAD is also involved in preserving and promoting the Rohingya language, and is currently collecting language data to be used in the production of a Rohingya dictionary and the development of apps for smartphones and computers. Two tools,anaudio data collection app and an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) system, are being developed for the Rohingya refugee community.

ILAD's longest running programs are in West Africa, where ILAD staff are involved in literacy, agricultural training, social business, micro-finance, and education. ILAD conducted the following activities: Literacy: In 2023, ILAD increased the number of mobile libraries from 17 to 18, serving over 2000 minority language speakers across two countries. Three schools also use the literature provided by these libraries to teach in the local language. In another West African country, 97 adult women are currently in a local language literacy program designed for those who could not read or write in any language. 5 new teachers were trained, and one new village began classes. Agricultural training: Over 1,500 local farmers have adopted the innovative organic pineapple production methods being taught on ILAD's self-sustaining demonstration farm. 719 village-based, small-farm co-ops are trained and in operation. The agriculture project includes teaching pond culture tilapia raising, animal husbandry, and crop diversification. In 2023, 26 new co-operatives were trained in organic pineapple farming and 11 local farmers were trained in multiple farming and animal husbandry disciplines at the demonstration farm. Social business: ILAD is supporting the creation of local businesses to provide fair market prices for agricultural products. These businesses generated over 90 full-time jobs for local people. In 2023, plans were made to begin a poultry and egg business. In Sept of 2023, 200 chickens were laying eggs and another 1500 broiler chickens were raised to meat. Business Education: In 2023, 36 local entrepreneurs were trained in a Business Development Center designed to equip them with knowledge and tools to run ethical, profitable, relevant businesses in their communities that provide economic and social benefits. During the phases of training, several of the local entrepreneurs were trained to be able to lead some of these classes themselves. Microfinance: ILAD offers financial services such as savings and micro loans through a rural agricultural development program. In 2023, $18,000 in loans were given to 16 different individuals. These loans result in a substantial increase in income for the participants. When the program started in 2013, 5% of the farmers involved in the program were landowners and at the end of 2023, 25% of the farmers are landowners. Education: In 2023, ILAD was also involved in the expansion of a Jr./Sr. School in a village that formerly could not provide education beyond grade school. The Jr./Sr. school enrolled over 100 students with nearly half being girls. The 2023 passing rate into high school from the junior high school was 100%. This rural school was considered one of the top school in the region.