Interpreters Without Borders

We've been accepted into an intensive 16-week business boot camp run by Green Worker Cooperatives for cooperative businesses that better our community and our planet. We're thrilled to be part of it and are looking forward to the training and coaching we'll be getting through the course. Not to mention, the incredible mix of technical support services such as legal incorporation, graphic design, and website development that's included as well. Your donation will help to cover our registration in the course and will make it possible for us to hit the ground running.

A small group of us is beginning to plan and develop an Interpreter and Translator Coop which we plan to launch this Spring. Many interpreters and translators have been discussing social justice interpreting for some time now; a core group of women of color decided to get together and begin visioning and planning for the creation of our Interpreter and Translator Coop.

The core group is composed of the following women: Ana del Rocío, Karen Lopez and Telesh Lopez. The three of us have worked, supported and are invested in social justice. We’ve worked with social justice groups around the city and the country in various capacities. Therefore our commitment to providing this service is deeply connected to building a strong and diverse social justice movement which is inclusive of all our voices. Today we are asking you to support us in making this happen. With your support we will develop a coop that is conscious, committed and will provide quality interpretation services for the long term. Our commitment is that this cooperative will be a source of training and sustainability for all those in the social justice community that would like to become interpreters.

We are participating in Green Worker Cooperatives' Coop Academy, a 16-week training and support program for cooperative entrepreneurs. The Coop Academy is designed to provide teams of entrepreneurs with the training, coaching, and technical services that can dramatically increase our cooperative's chances for success and produce model worker-owned businesses. We are very excited about this opportunity but need your support to pay for the full academy.

We need to fundraise $1,296 by Feb. 15, 2012 in order to participate in the academy. Many of you work at or know about organizations with members that speak different languages. These organizations need interpretation and translation in order to reach more folks in their communities and to be truly accessible and inclusive.  Some of you have contracted us, witnessed our work and know that we are committed to it. So please take a moment to support our work.

Your donations go directly to this training--which gives us access to the following:
 

·  Weekly one-on-one coaching sessions;

·  Fundraising trainings;

·  Legal incorporation;

·  Web site development; and

·  Graphic design services

If we raise more than $1,296, those funds will be allocated to our coop as funds to get us off the ground and cover expenses such as: butcher paper and other meeting supplies, business cards, travel expenses, professional development, interpretation equipment and maintenance costs, etc.

Many of you work at or know about organizations with members that speak different languages. These organizations need interpretation and translation in order to reach more folks in their communities and to be truly accessible and inclusive.  Some of you have contracted us, witnessed our work and know that we are committed to it. We see our work as critical to the language liberation of our communities and we think that people of any background have the right to organize in their native tongue.  So please take a moment to support our work.