Karang Audio Cassette
From SPARK
Brief Summary
The Gospel of John for the Karang people of Cameroon
Introduction
Many Karang speakers of Northern Cameroon are illiterate either because they are too old to learn or blind.
Key Factors
What Was Done
In 2003 Roy Buyse (vernacular media person) introduced digital recording at the village level when he came up to help with a multi-voice audio recording of the Gospel of John. Bob Ulfers, who was with the Karang project for 15 years, quickly picked up the technique and continued to produce recordings. Today, the Gospel of John, the epistles of John, and Galatians are available on cassette.
Results
- The Karang immediately started buying cassettes at cost. (Books need to be subsidized.)
- Hearing Karang ‘read’ well stimulated a desire to learn how to read.
- The dominant ethnic groups gained a respect for the Karang project.
- A related language (Kuo) requested Scripture recordings.
- Scripture on cassette helped the Karang compose 30+ Scripure songs which are now also on cassette
- A Christian radio station began weekly broadcasts in Karang.
Helpful Information from the Author
What lessons were learned that would apply to other people groups in similar situations?
Make sure to have an energy source at the village level that does not require continual use of DC to AC inverters as these cause static interference. We used a small Honda generator with a very long extension cord.
- By:
- Date entered:
- Date range of story:
- Location:
