Baatonu Literacy Primer Construction Project 

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Baatonu Literacy Project

Benin, West Africa

Baatonu is the language spoken by the Bariba people of West Africa:

1,040,000 speakers in Benin

   396,000 speakers in Nigeria

     30,000 in Burkina Faso

     28,000 in Togo

The Bariba are 65% Muslim, 18% animist, and 16% Christians. The entire Bible has been fully translated since 1996.  However, the literacy rate among the Bariba varies from 1% to 30%.

Latent illiteracy, especially among women in the remote rural areas, is a factor aggravating the precarious situation in which these communities find themselves. Good hygiene and health practices would have more impact if only a larger proportion of the population knew how to read and write.

Literacy Benin proposes to develop Bible-content literacy materials and teacher-training workshops in the Baatonu language. 

We estimate that there will be 1,500 new Bible readers created over the three year period following this project completion. 

Costs of the Baatonu Literacy Project:

$  8,000  for development of a 90-lesson, 2 book primer series.  (8 workers for 21 days)

    4,000  for printing 1,000 copies each of the 2-book series

    2,000  for subsequent promotion and teacher-training workshops.

$14,000  Total