I, alongside many of my fellow Tumbuka speakers, face a significant obstacle in accessing the vast knowledge and valuable resources available on the internet due to language barriers. While I was fortunate to learn English in school, many in my community weren't as lucky. As a result, excluding Tumbuka from translation services denies millions of Tumbuka speakers the chance to connect with our world's pool of information.

Tumbuka, or chiTumbuka, is a Bantu language spoken by approximately two million people primarily in Malawi, but also in Zambia and Tanzania. By incorporating it into Google Translate, the widely used language translation tool, we can open new doors for education and information for millions of Tumbuka speakers, bridging the language gap in a significant way and potentially making positive change to individuals, communities, and even countries.

While inclusion of every language in translation services poses an enormous challenge, Google has made significant improvements in accommodating more languages over the years, expanding to 108 languages in 2020. Adding Tumbuka to their list is not an impossible task but an initiative towards inclusivity.

We believe that language should never be a barrier to knowledge. Let us prove that all languages and their speakers matter. We urge Google's Language Support to consider adding Tumbuka to Google Translate. We ask that you sign this petition to support our effort to promote language inclusivity.