Mission & Vision

Our Mission

Mara Language Preservation (MLP) exists to protect, strengthen, and advance the Mara language as a living, usable means of communication for present and future generations. We are a community-led initiative grounded in the belief that language is central to identity, knowledge, and cultural continuity.

Our mission is to document Mara accurately, standardize it responsibly, and enable its everyday use in modern digital environments. This includes phones, computers, the web, educational materials, and emerging technologies. We focus not only on preservation in archives, but on active use, ensuring that Mara remains a language people can read, write, learn, and use confidently in daily life.

MLP works to empower Mara speakers by producing open, accessible resources—such as dictionaries, grammar references, datasets, and digital tools—that are freely available and community-owned. We collaborate with volunteers, educators, linguists, and technologists to create materials that are practical, respectful, and aligned with how the language is actually spoken and understood.

A core part of our mission is inclusion and respect. We prioritize the voices of native speakers, elders, learners, and contributors from the Mara community. Decisions about documentation, terminology, and representation are guided by community knowledge and cultural context rather than external authority.

Our Vision

Our vision is a future in which the Mara language is secure, visible, and fully usable across generations and platforms.

We envision a world where:

• Mara can be used naturally in education, communication, and creative expression
• Digital systems support Mara without barriers or workarounds
• Young people can learn and use Mara alongside global languages
• Linguistic knowledge is preserved ethically and shared openly

MLP aims to help build a strong digital foundation for Mara, ensuring compatibility with modern standards such as Unicode, web technologies, localization platforms, and open knowledge systems. By doing so, we seek to remove technical obstacles that often marginalize minority languages in digital spaces.

In the long term, we envision MLP as a sustainable, community-governed knowledge hub—one that supports research, education, content creation, and collaboration while remaining transparent, non-commercial, and independent.

Guiding Principles

Our mission and vision are guided by the following principles:

Community Leadership

The Mara language belongs to its speakers. Community input and participation guide our priorities and practices.

Openness and Accessibility

Language resources should be open, understandable, and usable by anyone who wishes to learn or contribute.

Practical Impact

Preservation is meaningful only when it supports real-world use. We focus on tools and documentation that people can actually apply.

Cultural Respect

Language is inseparable from culture. We approach documentation with care, humility, and respect for traditional knowledge.

Long-Term Stewardship

Our work is designed for durability, continuity, and responsible growth rather than short-term visibility.

Looking Ahead

MLP is an evolving project. As the initiative grows, we plan to expand our work in areas such as:

• Educational support and learning materials
• Digital publishing and localization
• Community training and mentorship
• Ethical partnerships with institutions and organizations

Our mission and vision will continue to develop alongside the needs and aspirations of the Mara community.