Just a Little More Light: Translating Hope
Just a little more light…
to touch the places in us yearning for hope.
to see the most vulnerable.
to illumine our world once more.
Just a little more light…
–Excerpt from poem by Rev. Larry Peers
Faith Action for Community Equity hopes to add to that “little more light” by serving our community.
First, in April we helped to put together 15,000 face shields for our health workers. Lately, we became language translators.
Our local families, veterans, and small businesses can get direct financial, health, and medical help from the federal government’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
There are 15 categories of aid with long descriptions on how to access that help. Imagine the near impossibility for someone who is still learning English to wade through this sea of technical English! How can we make it accessible to all who qualify?
Recognizing this as an equity issue, Faith Action accepted Senator Brian Schatz’s request for translating the material into other languages. We were assigned Cantonese and Tagalog.
University of Hawaii Faith Action intern Raymond Chen immediately gathered his contacts and friends in the Chinese cultural and business communities who quickly combined their resources to complete the Cantonese translations in less than a week!
Finding the Tagalog translator took longer. Eventually, a university professor fluent in both English and Tagalog was found and she completed the translation in three days.
“My goodness, what an important public service you all are performing!” said Senator Schatz.
We know there are still many needs to be met. We invite everyone to join Faith Action in adding “just a little more light.”
