After being home for a few days, I can reflect on my experience and everything I learned from being a Frank Karel Fellow. During my time with Mary’s Center, I helped welcome an immigrant family from a shelter who had recently arrived in the United States.
Coming to another country where you do not speak the language with three kids is very overwhelming. I was able to communicate with them because I’m bilingual, but in areas where Spanish speakers are the minority, it is scary not to understand such a new place. This was a routine activity for the staff, but it was eye-opening and impactful for me. Mainly because my mom is a translator and has worked translating requests between Spanish and English to come to the US for medical treatment or those seeking asylum. Seeing a Mary’s Center interpreter helping this family navigate an intimidating country like the United States gave me a new perspective on the weight and importance of my mom’s work. The degree of separation that I once had was gone. I was now face-to-face with this family, playing a small part in their journey to the US. This experience emphasized the need for multilingual services as a type of accessibility. It also made me reflect on the importance of having real people tell their stories.
Mary’s Center has used stories like these to help those not in this field understand the gravity and complex reality that immigrants face in this country.
Every story can inspire. Whether it’s learning something new, taking a new perspective, or feeling motivated to do something, this is how we convince the public that it’s in their interest to advocate for others. With stories like these, the goal of telling them is to inform and educate potential donors about the issues and to show them that they can be part of the solution. If people are not informed about a problem, they may never learn about it. Once they accept that this is a reality, there is a call to action to empower people to be the catalyst for change. This can involve donating to Mary’s Center to ensure that current and incoming participants can access lifesaving services. Offering these comprehensive services under one roof is at the core of Mary’s Center’s Social Change Model, which builds better futures by putting families on the path toward good health, stability, and economic independence.
Most of my work this summer has consisted of receiving information and fact sheets that I translated into bite-sized pieces. There is a strategy for engagement on social media; often, less is more. This includes translating documents into another language like Spanish to ensure the information about a service reaches its intended audience. There is also more engagement when posts have real people and when they see themselves represented authentically in the content. This is also primarily to help educate the participants on the services available because, for them, it is one thing to try and seek out what is available to them, it is another to have someone volunteer information and open that door and resource because it shows that we are paying attention to their needs.
Now, I can reflect on why I am here. Why am I interested in public interest communications? What brought me into this field is people and their stories. When people with similar values come together to forge connections, they help individuals combat personal barriers to care and advance efforts to improve the world. Each person in this Fellowship and
my coworkers at Mary’s Center have a story about how they got to where they are today, and I think that is what makes this field of public interest communications what it is.