On Thursday, Erika VanDyke who represents both informal and formal Latino organizations in Grand Rapids, attended a meeting with officials from the Kent County Health Department where she found out all the materials regarding the coronavirus outbreak had not been translated into Spanish.
“A staff person in the Godfrey Lee School District was the one who ended up taking on the translations of those materials for the health department and also I think that a school district as small as Godfrey Lee and really any school district at a time like this shouldn’t be using their bilingual staff capacity to be interpreting documents at the county level.”
In response to this concern Steve Kelso from the Kent County Health Department, said the content on the Kent County Health Department can be translated by google by pressing a button on the website. Although this tool allows some of the documents to be translated, none of the videos or press releases are translated.
Adnoris Torres from the Hispanic Center of Western Michigan says better translation services need to be in place to help spread information of coronavirus to all communities.
“For monolingual communities in the county or the state as a whole, we can’t depend on Google translate as a form of or a service that is going to be reliable and that is going to be utilized by the community as a whole.”
In the meantime, VanDyke says they making a spreadsheet available for those needing help with translations.
“The link for that is bit.ly/grvolunteertranslation, in that spreadsheet there is the ability for volunteers to sign up and for organizations to share their materials that they could use some help translating.”
