A week of activities for Creole, the native language of Haitians

The cities of Hinche, Thomonde, Mirebalais, Maïssade and Cerca La Source hosted the festivities to celebrate Creole, the mother tongue of the Republic of Haiti. The projection of a film on the experience of the literacy program carried out in Cuba, training sessions, animation of conference-debate, distribution of Creole documents, a major cultural event, where among the activities carried out on this occasion. The theme chosen by AKA this year is: “Respekte lang matènèl timoun yo se respekte dwa yo” translated into English “To respect the language of children is to respect their rights”.

Thus, the AKA organized training sessions on reading and writing Creole for socio-professionals and bibliotherapy workshops for students. The AKA organized multiple conference-debates in schools and universities, training for socio-professional from various sectors in direct and immediate contact with the Creole language (association of Creole teachers, writers, journalists, etc.).

To raise awareness on the issues of risks and disasters, several workshops around two documents “Risk and disaster management”, “sustainable development and citizenship” for students and pupils. These two documents have been translated into Creole by the UNESCO office in Port-au-Prince in collaboration with the Haitian Creole Academy.

For the president of AKA Monseigneur Pierre André Pierre, it is a question of celebrating with dignity the Haitian Creole which is the language spoken by the whole population, more than 10 million Haitians.

According to UNESCO, the vast majority of students in most countries are taught in a language other than their mother tongue, which compromises their learning process. In Haiti, most of the education is done in French, despite the establishment of a balanced Creole / French bilingualism by the Bernard reform of 1979 which notably provides for the use of Creole as the education language for the first 4 years of basic school.

On the occasion of International Mother Language Day, celebrated each year on February 21, UNESCO reaffirms its commitment to linguistic plurality and invites its Member States to celebrate the day in as many languages ​​as possible to recall that linguistic diversity and multilingualism are essential for sustainable development.