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View ProfilesPublished March 13, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. | Updated March 13, 2024 at 10:15 a.m.
On the Vermont Language Justice Project's YouTube channel, you'll find a video in Ukrainian about how to pick up prescription medications and another, in Mandarin, about why energy drinks are harmful. You can learn in Nepali how to administer naloxone, the opioid overdose-reversal drug, and get tips for driving safely in the winter in Arabic.
A local social worker and a small group of translators teamed up four years ago, in March 2020, to create the videos and provide important, constantly evolving public-health information about COVID-19 to Vermonters who did not read or speak English. Four years later, with a grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an assortment of smaller contracts, the project has turned out more than 2,000 straightforward informational videos in 18 languages, covering topics from mental health to natural disasters. The public service announcements have been viewed a combined 183,000 times.
In Vermont, which has welcomed an estimated 2,000 refugees in the past decade, the videos provide a critical service for recent arrivals, said Eve Dolkart, who has worked closely with the project in her role as a health equity liaison for the Vermont Department of Health.
"A lot of people have been able to access information they weren't able to access previously that is culturally .... responsive to [their] needs," Dolkart said.
Public health information is often disseminated to non-English speakers using computer software or by translating written materials into other languages and posting it online. But the Vermont Language Justice Project takes a different tack. It hires primarily local translators to record messages for succinct, engaging videos distributed by trusted community organizations. The reasoning: People are more likely to follow guidance when it is provided by familiar people whom they respect.
"It's an excellent model because it just helps bridge the cultural barriers," said Kerubo Webster, a Swahili interpreter and musician who has worked with the project since its inception. "Communities already know who these people are ... [The translators] understand the nuances and values of the community."
Alison Segar, a Burlington social worker and filmmaker who has worked extensively with immigrant and refugee families, is the driving force behind the project. In the early days of the pandemic, Segar worried that her clients, friends and extended family members who spoke limited English were at risk of getting ill or dying without accurate information about the virus.
"I really had this sense of urgency to do something," Segar said.
She recruited her friend Mohamed Jafar, whom she'd known since he arrived as a young boy in Burlington from a refugee camp in Kenya, to make what would be the first of many informational messages about COVID-19.
In the video, which was posted on YouTube on March 18, 2020, Jafar explains in Somali that there is a virus in Burlington and the rest of the world that can be spread even if you don't know you're sick. He tells people that hospitals are growing increasingly busy and that they should isolate at home if they are feeling ill.
"Stay calm but also responsible and safe," Jafar says in Somali. "If we all do our part, we will be safe and healthy. Peace to all brothers and sisters."
Segar, who was working for Howard Center and Spectrum Youth & Family Services at the time, found others who could record the same message in Arabic, Nepali and the South Sudanese dialect of Dinka — and posted those videos, too.
Soon, a group of community members who worked for immigrant- and refugee-support organizations began meeting over Zoom to discuss how to circulate timely pandemic updates. Segar tapped into a wide range of support: from state agencies, political and school leaders in Burlington and Winooski, AALV (formerly the Association of Africans Living in Vermont), the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants' Vermont office, and the University of Vermont Medical Center.
Segar would watch Gov. Phil Scott's daily press conferences and, on Friday evenings, meet with USCRI Vermont executive director Amila Merdzanovic and AALV associate director Thato Ratsebe to nail down a simple, straightforward script with everything people needed to know that week. Local translators would then record it in their languages. Segar volunteered her time, while translators were paid with a small pool of funds from the cities of Burlington and Winooski, the UVM Medical Center, and the health department. The group has since taken down some outdated COVID-related videos.
"By doing things in an audiovisual way, it just really worked for the populations we wanted to serve, because they just had to listen," Segar said.
In fall 2021, the CDC awarded the state a grant to address health disparities. The health department, in turn, gave the language project $330,000 to continue its work. Around that time, the project became part of CCTV Center for Media & Democracy, a nonprofit media center in Burlington's Old North End.
The money allowed Segar to translate videos into more languages, from 10 to 18, and expand beyond COVID-19-related videos.
Lili Feng, who provides Mandarin interpretation services in Vermont hospitals, schools and courts, was among the new hires. She said people are sometimes surprised to learn that there are dozens of Mandarin speakers across the state; many own restaurants, work long hours and feel isolated, she said. Every time a new video is created, Feng sends it to a list of her contacts through WeChat, a Chinese messaging app. She said they always tell her how much they appreciate getting the information. Messages about how to file taxes and talk with teenage kids have been especially well received, Feng said.
Focus-group participants have also provided positive feedback.
"We are learning about new things that we didn't know existed, and it helps us be careful about the dangers around us," one participant said.
Aside from COVID-19-related topics, the project has delved into everyday issues such as health insurance, wildfires, ticks and public transportation. Segar came up with the idea for a video on cyanobacteria after she watched an immigrant family heading to the beach at Burlington's Oakledge Park despite signs — in English — that said swimming was prohibited because of the toxic algae. Segar learned that the city wasn't displaying messages about cyanobacteria in different languages, so she quickly whipped up a script.
"I'm amazed at how they get messages out in the time frame they do," said Dolkart, of the health department.
When massive flooding hit parts of Vermont in summer 2023, Segar and the translators quickly churned out videos about staying safe during heavy rains, how flooding can contaminate drinking water and how to avoid falling prey to scammers pretending to be Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. The project also made a video for immigrant farmers in Burlington's low-lying Intervale about why they couldn't harvest produce that had been touched by floodwater.
The project recently finished a five-part series for the state Department of Mental Health on suicide prevention, trauma and how to get mental health support, paid for by a federal block grant.
They are filling a need that no one else in Vermont is, said Cheryle Bilodeau Wilcox, mental health collaborations director for the Department of Mental Health. "[It's] a really unique and creative project."
Segar, who is now running the project full time and recently brought on two staff members, has more big plans. A video about cancer screenings is in the works for Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, and she'd like to create more content about preventive medicine, as well as a series on sexual and reproductive health. Soon, there will be an easy-to-use app, where videos will be organized by language and topic. Because the CDC grant money will likely run out at the end of this year, Segar said she is hunting for additional funding to support the work.
Segar said she's surprised at how often language access is an afterthought and hopes that one day "it's actually a line item in every organization's budget." Ultimately, she said, "I feel like everything I know that makes my life better should be available for everybody to make their lives better."
The original print version of this article was headlined "Found in Translation | A video project delivers critical health information to immigrants in 18 languages"
Tags: Education
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