Emphasis on audio and visual resources during Year of the Bible in EgyptCAIRO, Egypt — As the Year of the Bible gets into full swing across the Middle East, a range of different initiatives are being used to implement one of the project’s key aims, that of increasing the accessibility and availability of the Bible to all those who wish to obtain it (see Latest News #265).
In Egypt, where illiteracy remains widespread, the Bible Society has identified the non-literate as a particularly significant group for whom access to the Bible may still be difficult. The Society is firmly committed to literacy work (see World Report 378 and 385), but also recognises that audio and visual media have a vital role to play in bringing God’s Word to the non-literate. Colloquial ArabicThis is why resources have been devoted over recent years to producing Scripture cassettes in various dialects of colloquial Arabic. These cassettes serve a dual purpose: people who are in the process of gaining literacy skills can use them as an aid to reading the Bible, while the blind can also follow the text in their Braille Bible. With the Bible Society making the cassettes available at subsidised prices, demand has been very high. So far, more than three million cassettes have been distributed and there is no sign of demand abating. Building on this success, one of the Society’s most important projects for 2004 is He Lived Among Us, a cassette which presents a professional dramatisation in colloquial Arabic of the life and miracles of Jesus. It is hoped to distribute 500,000 copies of this product during the Year of the Bible. While audio resources are effective in making the Bible accessible to the non-literate, they do not meet the needs of deaf people. Neither, in many cases, do printed materials: illiteracy rates among deaf Egyptians are at least as high as among the general population, if not higher. This means, then, that the Bible Society has turned to sign-language videos and books as it seeks to develop its work among the deaf. Sign languageCollaboration with Christian organisations
working with the disabled, particularly the deaf, has been a key feature
of this project. With one organisation, Master Media, the Society is
developing a series of children’s Bible story-books containing
text in both Arabic and sign language. The three titles published so
far – The Birth of Jesus, The Miracles of Jesus and
The Cross of Jesus – have been welcomed by all denominations.
The Society also hopes to raise US$30,000 to add sign language to six
Bible videos, the first such initiative for Egypt’s deaf Christians.
(WR 386/19 - 6/7.04) |
