SIL Tanzania - Scripture Engagement Research and Ministry

The Vwanji research report is now ready to read! The research in the Vwanji language area was conducted primarily through interviews, so the analysis and findings are framed differently to the report written regarding research in the Malila and Nyakyusa language areas,  which was conducted using Outcome Harvesting  (see previous blog post).  The primary researcher was my colleague, Juhudi Konga, who was able to apply his recently acquired research skills gained from his iDelta training. I then supported him by analysing the data and writing the report, with his input. Again I would like to thank  Jeff Robinson, SIL Tanzania’s Language Programs Director, for his feedback and advice on the report, as well as his encouragement to do this research in the first place.  If you don't have time to read the whole report, then I would encourage you to read the Executive summary, Section 4 (Observations and Implications) and Section 6 (Conclusions and Recommendations). Th...

After many weeks of going over the data and our observations and thinking how best to present the information to share with others, a report of our outcome harvesting research in the Malila and Nyakyusa language areas of Tanzania is now ready to read! I would particularly like to thank Phil Smith, of the SIL Learning Towards Transformation team, and Jeff Robinson, SIL Tanzania’s Language Programs Director, for their feedback and advice, after sending them my sixty-plus pages draft report. Yes, sixty-plus pages – it’s a long report! If you are anything like me, you’ll read the Executive Summary at the beginning and then jump to the Conclusions and Recommendations at the end. However, if you have the time, I’d encourage you to look through the other sections as well to learn what led to those conclusions and to read some of the many outcomes that we harvested. The report can be found here: Looking for fruit from Bible translation projects A colleague has also done some research in th...

At the beginning of February, SIL Tanzania held a week-long forum for SE, arts and literacy staff, to share ideas, spend time in God’s Word, learn and plan together. Fifteen people gathered together from four different Bible translation cluster projects, and we were also joined by two Language Programs Interns. One day was spent exploring Outcome Harvesting. What we looked at: What is Outcome Harvesting? (Discussed the importance of goals and measuring progress and talked about Outcome Statements and how to write them.) What have we done so far in Mbeya? (Discussed the process we have been through.) What have we learnt? (Looked at some of the data.) What implications do these findings have for our work? (General discussion.) How can we continue to use Outcome Harvesting in ongoing monitoring and evaluation? (General discussion.) To help the participants understand how the sense-making process works, I got us all doing some sense-making together, using Outcome Statements fro...