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Language Access Working Group
6/3/09
First Meeting

attending: carmen regalado, sylvia orduno, josue guillen (note taker), danielle majones (facilitator)

  • Review/modify agenda
  • Check ins and introductions: What is your interest in participating in this committee? What resources, relationships, skills or expertise do you bring that would be beneficial for this work?
  • History and lessons learned: What did this group accomplish in ensuring language access in Atlanta? What did it take to get it done etc?
  • Brainstorm: What do we think our goals and work should be?
  • Who else do we think is important to recruit onto this committee?
  • Commitments and Next Steps
  • Scheduling future meetings
  • Check ins and introductions: What is your interest in participating in this committee? What resources, relationships, skills or expertise do you bring that would be beneficial for this work?

sylvia - interested in getting local and regional folks involved. maureen taylor has some contacts in local arab community.

carmen - wanted to figure out how to plug in. prefers to get experience in doing this. never done this before. skills - bilingual eng/spanish. understands all, speaking is a little slow. has contacted some folks already locally

josue - loves doing this. wants to just do this for the forum, but that is not likely. was the co-chair of the communications working group the last time. this committee was initially a subcommittee.

danielle - having excellent translation is politically important, so that people can come and can participate fully. CTWO contributed $5,000 to this committee. was very, very impressed with how much interpretation was able to happen at the forum, given the little resources. wants us to strive to do better than last time. skills - spanish is my second language. do not do simultaneous.

  • History and lessons learned: What did this group accomplish in ensuring language access in Atlanta? What did it take to get it done etc?
plenaries, spanish, american sign language
workshops - limited by number of interpreters. constant contact enabled
3 coordinators - vivianna, roberto, hilary
challenges - recruiting other folks. getting to 100+ interpreters. important that it is not just folks who do it professionally

vivianna is developing an activist's glossary, to address the potential unfamiliar words

carmen - has the beginnings of a labor spanish dictionary

anything we can get ahead of time, to be able to translate before hand.

language access did not start out as its own workgroup. not having someone on the npc who was managing language access created some challenges on coordination.

sylvia - local group - ACCESS - could be very helpful in communicating with arab communities

carmen - local organizing member oya has been in touch with ACCESS

danielle - sheer force of determination and commitment is what made it happen.

there is some money in the current budget - $81,000 - towards supporting translation to happen. 6 months of salary for a coordinator. $35,000 for translation equipment. $35,000 for stipends for interpreters.

outcomes - do we want to base our goals on improving from the last time?

we should interpret a larger percentage of workshops. challenge because of the number.
maybe we ask workshop presenters to provide their materials translated.

we should communicate with program and tech working groups. maybe an incentive for workshop presenters could be higher visibility thru the website.

there was a conversation about languages. english, spanish. any others? last time was all about resources and capacity. can we do arabic? are there others to consider?

carlos noranda, from wisconsin, has 4 translators (french, spanish, arabic, asl) - from midwest social forum. has equipment (20).

priority - pool of written translators.

carmen has a list of detroit folks that can do translation.

does the IC have advice, experiences to share? cindy is the person to ask.

are there things that this committee could contribute to detroit?

leaving equipment behind, give people access to these skills.

highlander's movement interpretation training - do one locally

  • Brainstorm: What do we think our goals and work should be?
  • Who else do we think is important to recruit onto this committee?
someone from ACCESS - carmen
skillman foundation - does a lot of work in the empowerment zone in detroit. all their meetings are translated in arabic and spanish.
mujeres unidas y activas - danielle
domestic workers union - danielle
tigra - vivianna will be out of country for 6 weeks
highlander - roberto is very important
st peter's & cpa

danielle will check in with asian organizing groups

we need to be connected to at least the organizing and communications group.

carmen - labor notes folks, person from solidarity have shown interest.

we should probably prioritize getting equipment out of atlanta and into detroit.

what about the blind?

sylvia mention umich group to reach out to that translates books and lectures notes for students.

freedom house is a local group to reach out to.

josue will follow up on getting equipment to detroit.

  • Commitments and Next Steps
  • Scheduling future meetings
3pm june 19, 2009 - next meeting 30 minute check in around june 22 kickoff
looking at the week after july 4th for our next full meeting