by Melanie Brunson
With the acquisition of our new telephone system, ACB now has the ability to make information available to people who call our offices in both English and Spanish. We are excited about the opportunities this will give us to reach out to our members whose primary language is Spanish, and to attract new members who are Spanish speakers. Our first step was to provide access to ACB’s Washington Connection in both English and Spanish. With the assistance of Catalina Roisum, who is a member of ACB of Minnesota, and has begun working in our Minnesota office, each item on the Washington Connection is now being translated into Spanish and then recorded on the telephone system in Spanish.
Later this year, we plan to add additional information to the telephone system, and it is our intent to give callers the option of listening to these items in either English or Spanish. Both versions will be made available at the same time. In the meantime, others in ACB are working on increasing our Spanish-language resources. ACB’s membership committee has made two documents available in Spanish on cassette tape. These include: ACB Membership Benefits and a simple brochure. Any member or affiliate who would like a copy of these items on tape can contact either the ACB national office, or the chair of the membership committee, Ardis Bazyn. Her e-mail address is [email protected]. The committee is also working on producing Spanish documents in large print and braille.
We will keep you posted as our capacity to provide information to our Spanish-speaking members and friends increases. Please feel free to contact me if you have suggestions for information that would be of interest, or questions about how to get access to items that are currently available in Spanish.