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Margaret Hartung
Prior to working on the Navajo Literacy Project, Margaret Hartung was a Literacy Specialist with Wycliffe Bible Translators. From 1998-2006 she worked in north central Tanzania with the Rangi people group. The 350,000 Rangi had no written language up to then. About 93% of the Rangi are adherents to another world class religion which originated in the Middle East and 7% are Catholic. Margaret worked with linguist Oliver Stegen to do a Rangi alphabet chart and a primer to teach readers of the national language how to read and write Rangi. She also did a story book, a book of Rangi riddles, a book of Rangi proverbs and calendars. With the help of two Catholic Rangi elders, she held seminars in villages to teach readers of Swahili, the national language, how to read and write Rangi. She developed a health problem and had to leave Tanzania in 2006.
After leaving Tanzania in April of 2006, she had a six-month furlough in the US, during which she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. For a year she worked with Wycliffe Mexico Branch in Tucson, Arizona, in the Literacy Department inputting typed vernacular books into the computer in order to place them on the worldwide web. After the year in Tucson, she moved to Farmington, New Mexico, where she began work on Navajo literacy materials as a Missionary Volunteer Partner with The American Indian Field of World Gospel Mission. There were two student books taught in the Gudschinsky Method and the beginning of a teachers’ manual for the first student book. The materials had been corrupted in the computer and needed revision. Margaret worked with Betsy Newman to revise and edit the existing books and write the teachers’ manual for student Volume Two. They revised the manuals to include instructions in Navajo as well as English.
After leaving Tanzania in April of 2006, she had a six-month furlough in the US, during which she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. For a year she worked with Wycliffe Mexico Branch in Tucson, Arizona, in the Literacy Department inputting typed vernacular books into the computer in order to place them on the worldwide web. After the year in Tucson, she moved to Farmington, New Mexico, where she began work on Navajo literacy materials as a Missionary Volunteer Partner with The American Indian Field of World Gospel Mission. There were two student books taught in the Gudschinsky Method and the beginning of a teachers’ manual for the first student book. The materials had been corrupted in the computer and needed revision. Margaret worked with Betsy Newman to revise and edit the existing books and write the teachers’ manual for student Volume Two. They revised the manuals to include instructions in Navajo as well as English.
