OUR STORY

Mother Tongue Stories began from a conversation between its founders, Bu Gay Pah Thei and Kate McInnes. Having a cup of tea together via zoom (during Victoria’s Coronavirus lockdown), the conversation turned to Bu Gay’s two year old daughter, and her latest language acquisition. “Today she came home from her grandparents’ house and she had learnt a new word- “seesaw”. I actually had to look it up- it’s not a word we use, in English or Karen, and I don’t think Scarlet has ever seen a seesaw!” 
Bu Gay and her family are Karen Australian, having arrived in Australia as refugees after spending 12 years in a refugee camp on the Thai-Burma border. Despite Bu Gay and her family’s best efforts to bring Scarlet up to be fluent in her mother tongue language- Karen- they were struggling to do this when they had no access to books, children’s TV, resources, advice or support. Bu Gay told Kate that it was particularly important to her that Scarlet grow up speaking her mother tongue, as she wanted her to be able to continue to communicate with her grandparents, who had never learnt much English, as well as family members back home. 
Kate and Bu Gay started researching what was available to support refugee families to bring up their children bilingually, and started talking to other refugee families they knew. What they found was a complete lack of books, resources and support. And so the dream for Mother Tongue Stories was born- a dream to support children to have the best possible start in life, with strong language and literacy skills as well as confidence and connection to their cultural identities and mother tongues.