IK Notes Senegal: Indigenous Language and Literature as a Non-profit Business Non-profit The ARED Story I ssue 13 of this series (“Sahelian Lan- tributed in Senegal, and their continu- guages, Indigenous Knowledge And ing publication is 75 percent funded by Self-Management,” October 1999) the proceeds of book sales themselves. reasoned that literacy in African lan- ARED is also increasingly active in guages, now on the rise in a number of training (CERFLA was founded to de- countries across the continent, pro- velop the organization’s training voca- vides an important vehicle for the ex- tion) and in local knowledge cultiva- pression and development of indig- tion. How has it succeeded and what enous knowledge. Literacy and are the lessons of this experience in nonformal education programs “adding sinew to local knowledge?” throughout the region are giving a measure of public “voice”—at least at the local level—to community groups The cultural context and associations that had none before. The Pulaar culture constitutes the larg- But they often run into one consider- est minority community in Senegal. able obstacle: the lack of literature for Nearly a third of the country’s 9 mil- new literates in the languages of in- lion inhabitants speak Pulaar, second struction. only to those conversant in the major- The problem is beginning to be re- ity African language of the country, solved among Senegalese speakers of Wolof. Across West Africa, from Sene- the Fulani or Pulaar language in some gal to northern Cameroon, speakers of instructive ways. This article presents No. 38 Pulaar and related Fulani languages briefly the experience of ARED (Associ- November 2001 ates in Research and Education for De- velopment) and CERFLA (Centre IK Notes reports periodically on d’Etudes pour la Recherche et la Forma- Indigenous Knowledge (IK) initiatives tion en Langues Africaines), two in Sub-Saharan Africa. It is published closely linked non-profit organizations by the Africa Region’s Knowledge and Learning Center as part of an evolving operating in Pulaar-speaking regions of IK partnership between the World the country, which have been working Bank, communities, NGOs, develop- over the last twelve years to sustain ment institutions and multilateral organizations. The views expressed in popular literacy in the language. this article are those of the authors World Bank ARED now manages a publishing ven- and should not be attributed to the ture that sells between 30,000 and World Bank Group or its partners in this initiative. A webpage on IK is 50,000 volumes of literature ever year, available at //www.worldbank.org/afr/ predominantly in Senegalese lan- ik/default.htm guages. The books are principally dis- 2 number over 25 million, nowhere in the national majority and in 1982 came home to Senegal in the form of the Asso- but predominant in a number of subnational regions. The ciation pour la Renaissance du Poular (ARP), an organization Fulani are an ancient herding and, therefore, largely nomadic uniting overseas Pulaar-speakers with others living in urban people, perhaps of Egyptian origins in prehistoric times, who areas of Senegal who wished their children to be more famil- spread across the savanna regions of central and western Af- iar with their own culture. rica and became sedentarized in certain areas through reli- In the years following, ARP—spurred in part by the spread gious conversion and political conquest. They have also emi- of African language literacy programs and in part by the grated to a number of other countries of Africa and many cit- threat of the adoption of Wolof as official lingua franca for ies of Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. the country—turned its energies to promoting local literacy Starting in the late 1950s, this experience of strong cul- classes in Pulaar in Senegal itself. Hundreds such classes tural tradition and minority status gave birth to a cultural were created over the next five years—classes sponsored by revitalization. In 1958 a Senegaleese Pulaar speaker who had government agencies or official development projects as been living in Cairo for twenty years published a novel in the well as a mass of others initiated by local communities them- Pulaar language—Ndikkiri Joom Moolo, or “Ndikkiri, the selves. Standards were typically low, however; writing sys- First Born, a Guitarist”—written as an exercise in remember- tems used were extremely various; and follow-up literature ing his homeland. It was the story—at turns nostalgic, irrev- was very scarce. But the enthusiasm was real and the initia- erent and hilarious—of a Pulaar anti-hero who abandoned tive was passionately homegrown. hearth and home to take up a succession of careers as per- In an effort to remedy the perceived weaknesses of the forming artist, religious cleric and finally charismatic leader, campaign, a group of Pulaar authors created in 1989 a recurrently pursued by political authorities but triumphing Groupe d’Initiative pour la Promotion des Livres en Langue and restored to his culture and family in the end. The author Nationale (“Group for Initiatives to Promote Books in Na- chose to write in a Latinized transcription of the language tional Languages” or GIPLLN) to draw together existing rather than the existing “ajami” or Arabic-based transcrip- texts and facilitate their distribution to literacy classes. The tion, already in restricted use for many years among the reli- instinct was good, but the initiative proved more ambitious gious elite. than a team of authors could manage by themselves. Opera- Though rife with typographical errors that the Egyptian tions were consequently transferred the following year to a proofreaders obviously could not catch, the book gradually new nonprofit association registered in the United States, acquired a cult readership throughout the Pulaar diaspora. ARED. GIPLLN members constituted much of the Board, but One early reader, who later became an editor of Pulaar-lan- technically-skilled Senegalese and an American researcher guage materials, recounts the effect the book had on him. married to a Pulaar speaker were brought in as the He found himself devouring the novel outside his residence association’s executive personnel. ARED set about reproducing at three in the morning so that his roommates could sleep. the stock of Pulaar-language texts available and developing oth- ers, essentially as a service to the new literacy centers. I would sit on the sidewalk reading from Ndikkiri. With each page, I could barely keep from laughing out loud as I sat alone in the street. ... The next day, I would Unexpected success entertain my friends with stories from Ndikkiri while we The undertkaing succeeded to a much greater extent than its drank tea together. In the end, all of my friends who were promoters had anticipated. The combination of literacy literate in Pulaar could hardly wait [to read] the book... courses, an increasingly self-aware diaspora community, and the growth of NGOs concerned with developing better av- enues of dissemination and contact with Pulaar-speaking The birth of a movement populations offered a growing, if initially modest, “market” This sort of enthusiasm helped give birth to a movement of for such publications. The numbers of volumes sold annually Pulaar literacy and cultural renewal among those living in expanded from 6,000 in 1988 to 41,000 in 2000, and titles the Near East. From there, the initiative spread to France published from a handful to over 150. Fully 95 percent of 3 sales were to clients in Senegal. Prices were set to cover pro- manuals, The third category comprises new books developed duction costs and afford resellers a potential 25 percent mar- by staff, or existing publications translated into a Senegalese gin of profit. language by them, at the request of some outside donor. “Resellers” in fact included none of the major bookstores Publications of this nature include everything from agricul- in the country, which did not—and still do not—deal in Afri- tural extension manuals to a Pulaar version of L ’Aventure can language literature. ARED counts instead on small mer- Ambiguë, the renowned work of Senegalese novelist Cheikh chants and entrepreneurs who see the interest of their texts Amadou Kane, translated under his personal direction. Inter- for local readers and buy a few dozen to resell. Their favorite estingly, in both cases cited, ARED staff and resellers have story in this regard concerns a young man who walked from testimonies from readers among the civil servant and Univer- Kayes (in neighboring Mali) to Dakar, the capital of Senegal, sity student population who admit they never fully under- behind a large herd of cattle. He sold his livestock on the stood the material before seeing the Pulaar version. urban market and showed up at ARED offices with a good Last but not least, except numerically, come unsolicited part of his take: over 1,000,000 West African francs (about manuscripts submitted by free-lance authors. Such submis- $1,500). The money was already earmarked to buy Pulaar- sions have until recently been quite rare, in part because language publications for resale in the Kayes region, volumes ARED had not worked out clear contracting and remunera- ordered ahead of time by local merchants there. The young tion norms for free-lance authors. These problems have now man carried away a minor library to the train station, confi- been resolved, however: published authors receive 10 per- dent of a good profit on his return home. cent of proceeds from sales of their books in two install- ments. Moreover, the organization has decided in its most recent general assembly to systematically encourage free- A rich palette of publications lance submissions in order to foster broader local authorship Through the end of calendar year 2000, ARED and its prede- of publications; and the total number of such works having cessor, GILLPIN, had disseminated 350,000 copies of their appeared in print has now risen to six. publications, representing 168 different titles, 85 of them written in Pulaar or translated into it, and the rest in other Fiscal policies Senegalese languages, including French. This mass of litera- ture can be broken down in at least two informative ways¯by ARED does not distribute its books free of charge, but rather topic area and by source. Materials cover the following basic tries to set prices at a level that covers cost of production topic areas: plus a commission for the potential resellers while remain- • literacy and numeracy manuals (seven titles published in ing relatively affordable in Senegalese terms. Most titles cur- calendar year 2000, two of them new) rently cost the equivalent of $1.50. Some are subsidized by • novels, stories and other creative literature (one new title outside donors, like NGOs interested in using literacy manu- last year) als or commissioning documents on development themes, or • information on development and civil society (six titles bilateral agencies wishing to produce extension material for published in 2000, two of them new) projects they fund. Others are underwritten by ARED’s own • treatises on indigenous knowledge and traditional or reli- “investment funds,” or the savings they have realized from gious practices (three titles, two new) their diverse training and publication endeavors over the • instructional texts for management capacity building (one years. In toto, ARED now covers 75 percent of the cost of its new publication). publishing through book sales and another 25 percent through subsidized support and its own investment funds, Four different sources have been used for the written ma- making it the nearest things to a self-funding source of Afri- terial. The first is texts—mostly creative or religious— can language publications in francophone West Africa. authored by the founding members of GILLPIN and ARED During the latter years of the last decade, the themselves. Second come materials developed and written organization’s revenues were greatly strengthened by two by ARED staff, principally its series of basic literacy training clients. The first was foreign-aid supported government lit- 4 eracy programs that, under Senegal’s faire faire or decentral- to continue growing. Several non-financial factors have ized service provision strategy, funded a variety of NGOs to played a critical role, however, in the association’s success: carry out their own local literacy efforts and authorized them • ARED and CERFLA are as much “movement” as nonprofit to purchase manuals and texts from publishing ventures like business. The contributions of a certain number of political ARED that had developed certifiably effective materials. On ringleaders from within the Pulaarophone community, the strength of these orders, for example, the number of ba- both in the diaspora and locally in Senegal, have been criti- sic literacy books in Pulaar sold surged from just under 9,000 cal to their maturation and growth. in 1995 to over 40,000. The second source was major support • An ability to read the signs of the times and discern devel- from Lutheran World Relief (LWR) throughout the early and opmental “niches” for African-language publications and middle years of the decade, both for training local associa- literacy development has also been essential. Much in the tions and for the development and publication of a variety of current spirit of decentralization, local empowerment and written materials. Forty-seven of the latter were funded en- cultural renewal lends itself to making the formula work, tirely or in part by LWR. Its support was sharply curtailed but a bit of entrepreneurial spirit and acumen is required starting in 1998, however, due to problems that the organi- to capitalize on it. zation was experiencing in its own fund raising. ARED was • Good institutional backup for accounting and management forced to downsize its staff, consolidate its operations, and have also proved critical. ARED benefits here from a sys- concentrate efforts on areas of demand likely to produce new tem and a track record for resource management and from business. The effort has apparently been a success. In calen- its status as a US-, as well as Senegal-, registered association. dar year 2000, ARED produced 12 new titles and CERFLA • Ironically, perhaps, aspects of the information revolution carried out 26 new training sessions, while the total numbers have simplified and supported the task of publishing in Af- of books sold rebounded from a low of 23,000 in the year fol- rican languages. Computers can handle the specialized lowing reduction in its major underwriting to 41,000. fonts for language-specific sounds that posed big obstacles in the typewriter age, desk-top publishing makes local document design and production a relative snap, and e- Lessons learned mail tightens networks among far-flung allies. What are the lessons of the ARED experience? For one, the story of ARED makes it clear that—at least under the condi- Recognizing a disappearing resource tions in Senegal that the association has faced over the last two decades—it is possible to develop a nonprofit business To these factors should be added both the minority status and publishing firm devoted to African language literacy and and the particular resilience of the Pulaar community, which to the dissemination of indigenous knowledge. There are has lent to the endeavor a certain aura of “sacred cause.” workable formulas that rely essentially on local sales and ser- Nothing frames the value of indigenous knowledge and the vice receipts (though partly provided through the NGO and will to perpetuate so well, it would seem, as widespread aid funding network), without major underwriting from do- awareness that it is in danger of disappearing. nor agencies. ARED has survived this transition and managed This article was prepared by Dr. Peter Easton of Florida State University and Dr. Sonja Fagerberg-Diallo of ARED. For further information, contact ARED at Villa 8253, Sacre Coeur 1, Dakar, Sénégal, tel: (221) 825 - 7119, 824 – 5098, fax: (221) 824 – 7097, E-mail: ared@enda.sn