Language Justice in the Downeast
This past June with the support of Alagrabía Language Coop, Mano en Mano organized a Community interpretation training!
Bilingual staff and community members at our first Community Interpreter and Language Justice training
Community members and bilingual staff participated in a three day training to learn more about language justice, equity and how to advocate for community members. In total, about 25 people attended the training, led by Aldo Reséndiz and Sayuri Gomez.
Language Justice is a framework that focuses on respecting every individual's fundamental language rights, which include the ability to communicate, understand, and be understood in the language that people prefer and feel most articulate and powerful.
With limited multilingual resources in the Downeast area, many community members face barriers when accessing essential services in the areas of education, medical care, and social service support. Language is intrinsically linked to identity and culture, and in order to holistically support our community, it is important to provide multilingual resources and create spaces that practice language justice.This training represents an important first step in developing a language justice program at Mano en Mano, with a focus on providing interpretation services that remove barriers community members face.
Participants at the workshop learned about the history of interpretation, the four different fields of interpreting (Medical, legal, conference and community), and practiced their simultaneous and consecutive interpreting skills with group activities and exercises. The training also focused on learning about the difference between the role of advocate and interpreter and encouraged participants to continue practicing and refining their skills with additional resources and information.
Susi Paredes, Mano en Mano Office Manager participated in the training and shared:
“As a bilingual person, I have been interpreting for family members, friends, and community members from a young age due to the lack of language resources in the area. The training was very eye-opening because we learned about how much power and responsibility being an interpreter holds, and the important role that culture and context play while interpreting. Language is powerful, and it is so important to celebrate the different languages in our community and create more spaces that promote language justice so people can feel empowered and effectively communicate and express themselves with others so we can all thrive together. ”
Mano en Mano will continue to advocate for language justice, and support community members to overcome language barriers.
If you want to support the development of a language justice program at Mano en Mano, please donate below.
