Mission

The mission of the Rutu Foundation is to make linguistic and cultural diversity the norm in education.

All children have an equal right to an education that respects their cultural identity including their languages.

– Art. 29, Convention on the Rights of the Child – 

We believe that all children, especially indigenous children and children from migrant and minority backgrounds, should have every opportunity to learn in and through the languages they and their families use and understand well. They should be educated in a way that allows them to grow and flourish, well-rooted in their own languages and cultures.

What we do

• We support schools to value the cultural and linguistic diversity of their  students, among others through the Language Friendly School.
• We support indigenous leaders, parents and teachers to realize their own educational programmes based on their own needs and priorities.
• We provide training, develop multilingual learning materials and build networks of educators, parents, researchers and policy makers that support our mission.
• We advocate for full respect of article 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and to reach Goal 4 (quality education for all) and Goal 10 (reduced inequalities) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Since SDG4 is so foundational to the other Sustainable Development Goals, without mother tongue-based multilingual education the other 16 goals will remain unachievable.” UNESCO 2017