Tamale, July 20, GNA - As part of its Development Assistance Programme, the Ghana Institute of Linguistics Literacy and Bible Translation (GILLBT) has disbursed a total amount of GH¢ 41,750 to 427 women in the three Northern Regions. The money was disbursed to the women as soft loans to enable the women undertake small-scale business to improve upon their household incomes.

Mr. Micheal Awimbilla, Executive Committee Chairman of the organization who disclosed this to the GNA on Saturday at the 36th Annual General Meeting of the organisation in Tamale said the initiative was taken to address the needs of rural women. Mr. Awimbilla said though the organisation's core task was to translate the Bible into the various Ghanaian languages, especially languages of the three regions, it also saw the need to resource members of the communities in which they operated. He said the organization, in collaboration with its development partners had initiated programmes that would help reduce extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality, empower women, reduce child mortality and combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

He said workshops were organised for the women where they were trained in basic business management after which various sums of monies were given to them as soft loans with manageable interests. With regards to its core task of translating the Bible into the various local languages, Mr. Awimbilla said when GILLBT came into existence in 1962; there were no written scripture in any of the languages spoken in the three northern regions. This, he said, motivated the organisation to reverse the situation. "After 46 years of existence, we can now boast of the fact that we have been able to translate the New Testament into 19 local languages and the complete Bible into four local languages and currently working on 33 local languages", he said. He mentioned Tamplulma, Frafra, Bimoba and Konkonba as the local languages that the organisation had translated the full Bible into. Mr. Awimbilla said the main challenge facing GILLBT was the inability to retain its human resource due to financial constraints and appealed to its development partners across the world to come to the organisation's assistance to help promote its development agenda.