Dagara of Burkina Faso

The Dagara are widely dispersed villagers with about 1,300 Christians. The illiteracy rate exceeds 80%. The Dagara (pronounced DAH-gah-rah) people reside in the southwest part of Burkina Faso and the northwest part of Ghana. They live in small villages scattered over a large area. More than 98% of the Dagara still follow their traditional animist religion. However, the Association of Evangelical Pentecostal Churches was planted in the area at the end of the 1940s. Only a few individuals practice the other major religion in the region.

  • The team has faced some challenges in installing the new Dagara translation committee. Thankfully, they’re working to overcome these difficulties and to install an active committee. They’ve also been working to establish the literacy committee. Pray that these local committees will function well in benefiting the translation project.

  • Thank the Lord that, in answer to prayer, a church in Ireland has offered to help finish building the new translation and literacy office at Diebougou.

  • Project coordinator Stanislas has been incorporating the SIL linguist’s suggestions to improve the guide for the Dagara writing system. A new Dagara subcommittee has been set up to work on this orthography and recently held a number of constructive meetings. Praise God that this new Dagara subcommittee is eager to finalize the language’s writing system.

Found in: