EDUCATION

ESL AND LITERACY

ILAD recognizes the wide variety of fantastic English and literacy programs that already exist in the United States. Our Rohingya Program seeks to bridge the gap between monolingual, emerging literate Rohingya participants and these programs. Our curriculum has been specifically designed to meet the needs of refugees learning literacy for the first time in a language that is not their native tongue.

We offer trauma-informed English and literacy classes in the homes of Rohingya participants. Classes are approximately seven weeks and run year round from January to November. 

CITIZENSHIP

We offer crash course sessions for participants seeking help preparing for their USCIS interviews. Our series of citizenship education videos can be found on our YouTube channel.

ROHINGYA LITERACY MATERIALS

We partner with Books Unbound, Inc, IOM’s Rohingya Cultural Memory Centre, Bengal Creative Media, and local university literacy programs for the cultivation and implementation of Rohingya L1 literacy materials. This includes serving as a support to these organizations developing resource materials and books, as well as building story books and in-home literacy class materials of our own.

We recognize that the Rohingya language literacy situation is very complex, and we seek to honor the dedication of all who have gone before us to pioneer literacy in their mother language. Here in America, we use a Latin-based orthography to facilitate transfer of literacy between English and Rohingya. Ultimately, we desire that once a foundation for literacy is established, our Rohingya neighbors will be able to choose which writing system they prefer.