>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. >> Johnny Tija: Very good morning to you all ladies and gentlemen. I am Johnny Tija, I'm represent Yayasan Sulinama, Yayasan means basically foundation in English, it's in the NGO based in Ambon, the province of Maluku, the eastern part of Indonesia. So, greetings from Indonesia. First of all, we'd like to say a very sincere thank you to you, to the Library of Congress for granting us this literacy award. It's really a very big honor for us and also a big encouragement for us to continue our work, especially in this kind of multilingual setting in this country. And with this more than 700 languages, about 50% are still actively spoken even by children. And only about 10% of the population grow up speaking Indonesian, their national language as their modern tongue or first language. Whereas, the other 90% grow up speaking their modern tongue, which is different from the national language. So, children grow up speaking in their modern tongue mostly indigenous languages or kind of a lingual franca and they begin to learn speaking the national language when they enter formal schooling. So, with this kind of sociolinguistics issues basically language becomes a barrier when they are entering formal schooling. So, we try to -- we have been trying to help them with the language issue. We started about 10 years ago doing the modern tongue basic education program in the modern tongue. So, we started in that [inaudible] on the small island. And until now we've been developing teaching materials in the five different modern tongues. And every year about 1,000 preschool children enjoy the education in their home language. And for the last seven years this impact that we have been witnessing that children actively engage in the class activities. They understand the concepts easier and faster, they're growing in their confidence and become more mature to attend higher education. And also, with the teachers they are becoming confident in teaching, the people are more acknowledging them and respecting them and they are becoming skilled in leading and managing the class. And all the class activities are done using the children's modern tongue. And we've been witnessing really that language used as medium instruction does matter to the children and also to the teachers. The other thing is the teachers need good teaching materials in the modern tongue and they also need training. But training alone is not enough they still need ongoing mentoring and coaching. And until now we've been still doing advocacy on the importance of basic education and the importance of using the modern tongue, children's modern tongue in the education. And it's still a hard issue actually there in Indonesia because it's out of the mainstream. But we're getting more political support from the Indonesian government and also, I might need to also say thank you to the government of Finland they've been helping us with financial support for six years to do these programs. And the last thing is children need reading materials in their modern tongue and also in the national language to do some kind of [inaudible] the national language before or when they enter their formal schooling. And this year we've been developing a children's book with the help from the USAID and thank you for United States of America's government and with a low-cost production approach. I think that's all I can share with you yeah. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress, visit us at LOC.gov.