Dear Respond community:
Thank you so much for your support that made our work possible in 2021!
To the incredible partners we work with--grassroots collectives and mutual aid groups mobilizing everyday to support their communities, immigration attorneys and legal assistants, educators, therapists, social workers, organizers--thank you for trusting us to partner with you in your critical work. And for the kindness and energy that make us feel so grateful and excited to continue to do this work with you everyday.
To the incredible translators, interpreters, and project managers working around the clock to bring trauma-informed, compassionate and quality language support to anyone, anywhere, whenever it is needed: We appreciate and value you so much! We couldn’t be more grateful to kick off a new year with you. Thank you.
2021 was yet another year marked by pain, injustice, and failed promises by our government(s). We wanted to share the ways that all of your labor and support helped us to fight against systemic language violence, which continues to be weaponized against linguistically marginalized people in the cruelest ways by the U.S. and governments around the world. Here are some highlights of what we were able to accomplish:
In this edition:
Numbers alone cannot show the impact of the work done by our incredible global team.
Funding Language Access - $161,412 USD paid to translators in 2021
Respond has provided the equivalent of over 1 million dollars worth of translation/interpretation work for free. We are so grateful to all of the volunteer translators and interpreters doing the work. We are committed to providing pro bono language access services to individuals experiencing crisis, as well as un-funded collectives where pro bono support is necessary.
We are also committed to changing the culture that insists on underpaying and undervaluing language practitioners, especially translators and interpreters of Indigenous and marginalized languages, who are too often asked to work for free even whilst experiencing systemic economic violence. We started the year with less than $30,000 in our bank account, and just 1 full-time staff person!! Thanks to our community’s relentless fundraising work this year, we have:
Paid $161,000 USD to financially vulnerable translators and interpreters for their work
Ensured Indigenous Language and Marginalized Language interpreters can access paid work opportunities
Raised $10,000 through social media / our mutual aid fund to expand our Haitian Kreyol team and our Afghan languages team and ensure just wages.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our ongoing fundraising efforts, and our amazing partners working to ensure funding for this work. Thank you to our volunteer translators, whose time allowed us to create opportunities for system-impacted translators to be paid, and access training opportunities.
How We Feel About Respond!
From Our Team:
“Receiving payment for doing something I love is great, especially in a country where it is very hard to get a decent/respectable job... Respond has given me a great opportunity to get my life back on track after voluntarily deporting myself due to not having papers." Carmen, Haitian Kreyol Team
“I was very happy to have supported the Health Screening and Report Card translations. The second one is an example of how reaching out to the first-generation Bengali-American parents about their children also helps them be involved in their children's lives.” Tanveer, Bangla Team
“I have no words (which is a big deal as a translator!) to describe how I feel about this community” Valentina, Translator and Project Manager
From Our Partners: (Read the full stories here!)
“My son has won asylum. The happiness and gratitude I feel for this team are overflowing. Thank you for the solidarity and support in translating all of his documents and keeping us informed. This army of people with huge hearts made it possible for all of our papers to be ready on time. This is a new beginning for my son, an end to the nightmares, harassment, and threats. The beginning of his freedom. He and I will be eternally grateful.” Texas Nicaragua Community
“Thanks to Respond’s Haitian Kreyol interpreters and translators we have submitted a total of 53 humanitarian parole applications and assisted 1,400 Haitian asylum seekers who are stuck in Mexico with accessing humanitarian resources such as food, shelter and medical care. We have had 5 extremely vulnerable Haitian families that received humanitarian parole and are already safely in the US, totaling 17 people total, 5 of whom were children. All of these families had severe medical issues for which they were unable to receive care for at the border, all of them experienced racism and discrimination for being Haitian refugees while in Mexico. Three of these families' homes were destroyed during the recent earthquake in Haiti.” Al Otro Lado
"We have been able to provide full translation packets to several asylum seekers since last December thanks to Respond. It was the first time that we actually got to provide two legal consultations with K’iche’ interpreters.” Andrés Flores, CLINIC
"We rely on Respond to help us translate documents that are in languages not spoken by our team like Tigrinya and Quechua. Respond is a trailblazer in this field." Monica Whatley, Southern Poverty Law Center
"Working with Respond Crisis Translation has been revolutionary for us. Beyond traditional translation, they have also worked with us to innovate, rolling out a voicemail interpretation system to assist clients during the pandemic. They have often provided make-or-break assistance for asylum hearings where deportation is a potential death sentence, translating documents in as little as 1-3 days. [Our clients] ultimately won asylum and were reunited with their families.” Julia Valero & Aida Farahani, RAICES
"Respond Crisis Translation has made it possible for us to expand our reach and make sure thousands of undocumented and students in mixed-status families understand their rights and access in our schools." Viridiana Carrizales, Vanessa Luna & Lorena Tule-Romain, ImmSchools
"We found a pro bono attorney to represent a detained Mauritian man at Adelanto Detention Center. The only hitch was that he spoke Pulaar. [...] Not knowing where to turn, I messaged Respond Crisis Translation for suggestions. Sure enough, they responded immediately with a contact for a Pulaar phone interpreter! With Respond Crisis Translation's support on this, our pro bono was able to communicate effectively with her client [...]. He was granted a low bond and released from detention...” Erin Anderson, Al Otro Lado
"Thanks to the timely and expert translation of documents, we have been able to provide much-needed support to over 45 Nicaraguan nationals seeking asylum. Some of the people we have assisted have spent over 6-10 months in detention before their cases find resolution.” Leticia Morales, Texas Nicaraguan Community
Growing our team:
We started the year with 1,700 translators and interpreters across 77 languages. We finished the year with 2,500 translators and interpreters across 105 languages! We took cases and projects in 98 languages this year. This all happened during COVID with just 1 full time staff person! It’s a is testament to the resilience, commitment, and strength of our badass brilliant translators and interpreters. We love you!!
We are kicking off January 2022 with 7 part-time employees & 2 full-time employees!
Spanish Team Lead - Romina Galloso Sabat
Haitian Creole Team - Danielle Josyle, JoAnn Gustave, Laura Wagner
Afghan Languages Lead - Uma Mirkhail
Accounting and Finances - Pierre Beaubraun
Marginalized and Less Frequent Languages Lead - Valentina Callari Lewis
Communications Lead - Meryl Ranzer
Development Director - Marie-Eve Monette
Operations / Outreach Director - Meg Sears
Community Manager - Isa Romo
Team Spotlights:
Language barriers make every aspect of life impossible - from navigating the violence of the detention system and asylum process to getting out of situations of domestic violence, getting health care, understanding COVID procedures, getting therapy, communicating with your children’s teachers, reading report cards. Meet 3 of Respond Crisis Translation’s amazing translators and interpreters, who have been working around the clock to dismantle language violence!
2021 Highlights
In addition to the day-to-day casework of translating over 28,000 pages for asylum cases, our network took on several important projects last year in collaboration with our partners.
Here are some highlights:
Legal Advocacy
Translated hundreds of pages of Know Your Rights information for middle schoolers, high schoolers, and the wider community into Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and Vietnamese with the PAIR Project.
Made hundreds of pages of Pro Se guidelines and information available in Arabic, Bangla, French, Haitian Creole, Hindi, Portuguese, Punjabi and Russian with Southern Poverty Law Center.
Translated Pro Se manuals for women, as well as guidelines for attorneys working with victims of gender and sexual-violence into Swahili with Lawyers Without Borders.
Recognized by the American Bar Association for our Spanish and Kurdish teams' important work!
Built out a training for attorneys working with court interpreters at the Florence Project
Provided interpretation for Haitian Bridge Alliance's newly-launched Temporary Protected Status (TPS) clinics.
Translated Temporary Protected Status (TPS) updates into 8 languages with FWD.us
First time U.S. federal court case was live streamed in different languages: Nadege Chérubin provided simultaneous English-Kreyòl interpretation so that Haitian clients could participate in a hearing in Al Otro Lado v. Mayorkas, a case that challenges the government's policy of turning back asylum-seekers at the border.
Our Portuguese team received an urgent 20 page request for an asylum case with a one day turnaround time - within 15 minutes, 5 translators had all the documents covered!
Following the events in Del Rio, Texas in September, we did same-day emergency English-to-Kreyòl and Spanish-to-Kreyòl translations for FWD, the California Welcoming Task Force, and ImmDef, all of whom are providing urgent information to Haitian migrants at the border.
Our Haitian Kreyol team has completed over 100,000 minutes (1,669 hours) of interpretation for asylum seekers.
Translated a guide for how to change your address in immigration court with ILAP.
Supported Al Otro Lado in submitting a total of 53 humanitarian parole applications for Haitian families.
Assisted (between September and December 2021) 1,400 Haitian asylum seekers who are stuck in Mexico with accessing humanitarian resources such as food, shelter and medical care with Al Otro Lado.
Built partnerships with organizations around the country to support resettlement and asylum processes for Afghan asylum seekers. Currently, our Dari and Pashto teams are working with the following orgs on large-scale interpreting projects for recently arrived refugees across the U.S. and Canada:
Immigration Equality
Montana Pro Bono Working Group
ILAP (Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project) Maine
Advocates for Immigrant Rights (AIR)
Home is Here NOLA
Human Rights First
IRC (International Rescue Committee)
Worked with AFSC (American Friends Service Committee) to provide interpreting for their detainee hotline in Punjabi.
Social and Economic Justice
Translated website content for a website that is dedicated to helping migrant farm workers in Maine with ILAP Help for Farmworkers in Maine - Kreyòl Ayisyen
Translated a beautiful poem into 8 languages for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPIHM) for a powerful video by the filmmaker Kitty Hu.
Translated Resources to Combat Anti-Asian Hate with SAALT (South Asian Americans Leading Together).
Translated a legal advisory on the immigration consequences of using marijuana if you are a non-citizenwith ILAP
Education
Made hundreds of resources on college information, COVID learning, and student-parent-family feedback accessible in 10 languages with ImmSchools.
Translated report cards, teacher’s comments, and interpreted parent-teacher conferences into Arabic, Bangla, Pashto, Portuguese, and Haitian Creole with Growing Up Green.
Translated research about the needs of multilingual families across NYC into 10 languages with CUNY-IIE.
Social Services
Translated forms and live interpreted intake appointments for non-English speaking refugee and immigrant clients with Jewish Vocational Service.
Made danger assessments for women experiencing domestic violence, and therapy sessions for survivors of torture available in Amharic, Arabic, French and Spanish with Northern Virginia Family Service.
Translated crucial information for survivors of domestic violence available in 7 languages with Sanctuary for Families.
Translated and recorded financial literacy training programs into 4 languages with HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society).
Made information about food access, education, and healthcare services available to children living in poverty in Southern California with San Diego for Every Child.
Housing Justice
Made posters, flyers, media, strike stories, landlord letters, FAQ, organizing guides and housing defense tools available in Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog and Spanish with Bay Area Rent Strike.
Translated an oral history podcast “Home is a Human Right”, featuring stories of tenants and homeowners who have lost homes to gentrification, available to non-English speakers experiencing housing insecurity through Mutual Aid Housing Strategies NYC.
Climate Justice
Translated a 5000-term climate glossary into 40 languages, which will help an anticipated 300,000 people across the globe to better understand climate issues with Climate Cardinals.
Translated research and advocacy work at the intersection of climate, ecology and human rights into Greek with Ethos & Empathy.
Made Sea Shepherd’s work protecting and advocating for marine wildlife health and stability accessible in Greek.
Worked with Climate Cardinals and the UN to translate a report about how the climate crisis affects children’s rights. The summary was translated into Yoruba, Hausa, Somali, Swahili, Lingala and Igbo!
Health
22 of Respond’s amazing language teams translated a platform with Primary.Health to make at home COVID-testing accessible at a 3rd grade reading level!
Collaborated with South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) to translate a vaccination toolkit with detailed information about COVID-19 vaccines into Bangla, Nepali, Tamil, Arabic, Hindi, and Urdu
Partnered with Research-Aid Networks to expand cross-cultural knowledge of
