We'd like to tell you a bit about Buliisa, and the Lugungu Language

Location

The Location of Buliisa

combined

Location of Amari on Google

Statistics in Brief

POPULATION
114,000 in 2014. (71,000 in 2009)

POVERTY LEVEL
Est. 55% below the poverty line

INDIGENOUS TRIBE
Bagungu (also Alur, Luo, and Lugbara)

LIFE EXPECTANCY
Average expectancy 44 years

LIVELIHOOD
Subsistence farming and  fishing

AGES
56% of the population below 18 years of age

EDUCATION

  • 12% of under 18 year olds have lost a parent.  1% of these are double orphans (both parents dead).
  • Primary pupil-teacher ratio is 1:72
  • Primary pupil-classroom ratio is 113:1
  • Adult literacy is 52 percent. (National rate 68%)
  •  Level of education reached by all the population: 48% complete Primary, 9 % complete Secondary, and 1% Tertiary
  • Primary enrolment drops almost 80% between P1 and P7
  • Secondary schools are also very understaffed
  • 4x as many male teachers as female
  • In 2015, Buliisa District (one of 112 in Uganda) scored 2nd bottom in the PLE (Primary Leaving Examinations)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Data from 2009 Buliisa District Local Government Report. (2014 population figure from Population Census)

Teaching in the Lugungu Language

Amari's core vision is to provide quality Christian education to orphaned and vulnerable children. We also believe that children are given the best educational start if they can learn to read and write in their mother tongue. (E.g. See Save the Children and UNESCO reports)

Given our rural location, our children's lack of exposure to print, and lack of exposure to written and spoken English, and because of our relatively monolingual setting, we have chosen to teach initially in Lugungu (the mother tongue of the Bugungu of Buliisa), and transition to other languages (English and Kiswahili) when the children are older. 

To this end, and in consulation with SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics), our teachers have been working on developing Lugungu language material suitable for Nursery level (learning to read), and adapting higher level material already published by SIL and LUBITLA (Lugungu Bible Translation and Literacy Association).

Lugungu Language Resources
Dictionary from SIL (Click photo for link)

dictionary-001

Resources from LUBITLA

james-reading_-002

Alphabet Flashcards (Amari)

flashcards-001

Lugungu in Action