​Covid-19 Information for Everyone
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BY SABINE POUX
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As cases in Alaska are reaching record highs, the city of Anchorage is spearheading efforts to broaden access to updated information for those for whom English proficiency is limited.
The need for better emergency information in other languages became glaringly apparent to city officials after the 7.0 earthquake in 2018, said Shannon Kuhn, a Special Assistant to Mayor Ethan Berkowitz. But until now, those plans remained somewhat dormant.
“The pandemic really catalyzed putting language access into practice versus just making it something that was a checklist item,” Kuhn said.

The city has convened a task force to address questions of language access, which includes advocacy organizations focused on helping refugees, among other groups. At the start of the pandemic, they were meeting once a month; now, they meet every other week.

The City’s Office of Emergency Management is piloting a version of the text updates program, which already exists for English-speakers, in other languages. Updates will include COVID-19 health and emergency preparedness information.

To sign up to receive text updates, text ANCHORAGEOEM to 888-777.

The city is also creating short, shareable weekly audio updates in 17 different languages, in collaboration with the Language Interpreter Center at the Alaska Institute for Justice in Anchorage, Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services, Alaska Literacy Program, the Anchorage School District Family Welcome Center, and Alaska Deaf Council.

“That way, it can be a text over WhatsApp, or over Facebook, and then people can listen to the update versus translating these 10-page documents that people just don’t have time for,” said Kuhn.
Updates are available in Amharic, Arabic, Burmese, Chinese Mandarin, Dinka, Hmong, Kinyarwandan, Korea, Japanese, Nuer, Russian, Samoan, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, General Central Yup’ik and Scammon Bay/Lower Yukon Yup’ik.

Updates are available on the city’s website, here:
covid-response-moa-muniorg.hub.arcgis.com/pages/multi-lingual-resources.

Kuhn said it’s been difficult to reach people during the pandemic because so many people are not online. A lot of the city’s outreach methods are in-person — for example, the city will partner with grocery stores and churches to get information out during a crisis.

Going forward, the city might collaborate with community leaders who speak various languages and who could direct peers to resources, Kuhn said, noting it would be a separate initiative from contact tracing.
The University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) COVID-19 Response research team conducted a needs assessment on behalf of the city between May 25 and June 30, to gauge where there was need for more information and assistance.

The survey was available online in English, though community members were hired to translate the survey for about 238 non-English speakers. One of the writers of the report, UAA Professor Gabriel Garcia, said that they did not include a separate category of recommendations for non-English speakers, since there is a lot of overlap between that category and that of the “Immigrant and Refugee” group.
Both immigrant and non-immigrant racial and ethnic minorities said their preferred method of communication about the virus is the Internet.

Non-white respondents were more likely to have to work outside the home during the “hunker down” mandate. Immigrants and refugees were more likely to have lost employment during the pandemic.
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Overall, “racial/ethnic minorities and immigrants and refugees reported significantly higher levels of worry in terms of household finances, losing employment, having self or members of their household being infected by coronavirus, and having enough to eat compared with other survey respondents.”  ​

Sabine Poux is originally from New York. She is a bilingual journalist, recently graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont, where she served as editor-in-chief of the student newspaper The Middlebury Campus. In addition, Sabine was part of the vocal ensemble Middlebury Mamajamas at the same institution. She has written for Seven Days and SFGate, and has produced community radio in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sabine’s love for Alaska first originated in Anchorage, where she visited her aunt and uncle as a child.

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ART: SHANNON KUHN