Thanks to CCIO!

Members of the Community and Court Interpreters of the Ohio Valley received flyers from the From Our Lips to Your Ears project at the fall professional event today. Special thanks to CCIO for helping get the word out!

CCIO Fall Professional Development Event

The Community and Court Interpreters of the Ohio Valley is hosting a special professional development event on October 26, 2007, from 10:00 am until 5:00 pm. The event will be held at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, in London, Ohio, and at the Supreme Court of Ohio. Courtesy of Natasha Curtis, fliers regarding the From Our Lips to Your Ears project will be on hand for participants. Participants will meet at the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI&I) at 10:00 a.m. where participants will have a chance to tour the facility and talk with people who work in the various sections of the BCI&I. This will include the DNA unit and various other units of the Forensic Laboratory, the Identification Section (responsible for maintaining criminal records, conducting record checks etc.), and Investigation Section.

The afternoon will then kick off at 1:45 p.m. at the Supreme Court of Ohio building where participants will be introduced to the fascinating world of Forensic Linguistics with a presentation by Dr. Susan Berk-Seligson, a nationally recognized expert in the field. The day will conclude with a brief open discussion with Mr. Bruno Romero, Interpreter Services Program Manager at the Supreme Court of Ohio, about certification efforts currently underway in Ohio.

Registration Deadline: October 18. [All registrations must be received by this date. NO EXCEPTIONS]

Admission: CCIO Members: $40 Non-CCIO Members: $50 Students: $25.00

More Information: www.ccio.org, call 330-634-9195 or e-mail secretary@ccio.org

For more upcoming events, visit the project calendar.

Medical Interpreters Association of Connecticut

It is with great pleasure that I am able to share some information here about the newly formed Medical Interpreters Association of Connecticut.

The Medical Interpreting Association of Connecticut (MIAC) is dedicated to fostering linguistic and cultural services for individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) and for healthcare providers, for the purpose of advancing access to healthcare in an informed, equitable and respectful manner.

MIAC's principal objective is to work toward advancing healthcare services for LEP individuals that includes the following:

(a) Promote a system of healthcare that values and demands access to qualified medical/mental health spoken language interpreters and sign language interpreters.

(b) Educate healthcare providers to appropriately use interpreting services.

(c) Assist in creating a pool of linguistically and culturally competent professional medical interpreters.

(d) A process to link medical interpreters with healthcare organizations.

(e) Identify and address the unmet linguistic and cultural needs of LEP individuals.

(f) A process to assuring quality and monitoring effectiveness of interventions/programs.

(g) Policies, procedures and resources to support these components.

Here is some information about the upcoming inauguration:

The Expansion of Connecticut's Limited English Proficiency Population Highlights the Need for a Professional Medical Interpreting Association.

Hartford, CT - July 17, 2007 - Disparities in access and delivery of healthcare is strongly related to the availability of good interpreting services. Along with language, especially for those with limited English proficiency (LEP), the effectiveness of available healthcare services is closely connected to culture, ethnicity and societal customs. In response to these concerns, the Medical Interpreting Association of Connecticut (MIAC) has been created to foster linguistic and cultural understanding through education, outreach, research, policy development and increased organizational awareness of the importance of linguistic and cultural competency. The principal goal of MIAC is to improve access to healthcare services for Connecticut's LEP population in an informed, equitable and respectful manner.

MIAC will be officially introduced to the medical community and government representatives on August 13, 2007, from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., at Hartford Hospital, Heublin Hall, 560 Hudson Street in Hartford, Connecticut. Members of the media are invited to attend. This event includes a presentation regarding the issues of medical interpreting in Connecticut as well as an expert panel discussion about the need to address language barriers in health care. For LEP individuals, language barriers often result in reduced access to health care services, misdiagnosis, poor quality of care and compromised medical outcomes.

For additional information about this event contact Adela Staines at (203) 623-9911 or adelaabel@gmail.com.

Special thanks to MIAC for not only supporting our project by sharing information about it on their official website (see left), but I am excited to share that MIAC will be making flyers for the From Our Lips project available at the inauguration.

What a great way to start this association off on the right foot, by also encouraging interpreters to support a project that promotes greater awareness of the important work all interpreters do! This event has also been added to the project calendar on the official project website.

Truth in Translation

This looked like something that might be of interest to many readers:

FREE TICKETS TO US PREMIERE
OF SOUTH AFRICAN PLAY
"TRUTH IN TRANSLATION"
SEPT. 6 - 8 AT SMU

presented by the
Embrey Family Foundation

DFW International Community Alliance is proud to partner with the Embrey Family Foundation to publicize this extraordinary theatre production. This is a wonderful example of how artists can inspire change and make a difference by imagining new beginnings and new models.

"Truth in Translation" is a dramatization, told both as a play and in music, about South Africa during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), when translators (the subjects of this re-enactment) of the 11 African languages translated the testimony of the genocide perpetrators as they spoke about the crimes they committed, the testimony of the victims as they spoke about their loved ones killed, the translators' and community's experience and ultimately, the healing that results from truthful communication.

The entire presentation is extremely moving and profound. As Truth in Translation proposes: Can we forgive the past to survive the future - the role of art in perception-shifting.

When: September 6 through 8:
Evening performances begin at 8:00 p.m.
One matinee at 2:00 p.m. Saturday, September 8

Cost: FREE by reservation only.

Groups welcome.

For more information:
The Bob Hope Theatre
Southern Methodist University
Dallas, TX
214-206-3577, ext. 304.

Read more about it, find other performance dates and locations, and read the letter of support from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, here:

http://www.truthintranslation.org/