How are you feeling today?

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DONATIONS ARE NO LONGER BEING ACCEPTED FOR THIS PROJECT.

Thank you to those to those who donated in the past.

There is no wrong answer to this question.

At the risk of sounding trite, your feelings are your feelings. Whatever they are, that’s okay.

It is okay if you’re feeling scared, anxious, angry—or all of the above. But while it’s important to take a moment to allow yourself to honestly experience your emotional state, it is also important to recognize the luxuries that we have when it comes to our current global crisis.

For example, one feeling that many of us are dealing with is that of being overwhelmed by information. But for a huge percentage of the world’s minority language populations, there is no easy access to any information about the virus at all—no good, vetted, and scientifically sound information.

  • What if you didn’t even know what a virus was?

  • What if no one had ever told you how a virus spreads?

  • What if you didn’t know that something as simple as washing your hands (and when and how to do it effectively) could save your life?

For the majority of the world’s people—the poor, the traditionally powerless and marginalized—the problems caused by this viral pandemic are not only psychological or emotional. These people are not sitting in comfortable, well-stocked homes refreshing the webpage of a global Map of Cases as they wrestle with existential dread. No, in many cases they are struggling for their very survival in situations where proper social distancing isn’t even possible, and good information is not available. Many minority language speakers live in countries with weak healthcare systems, and have the least amount of access to the systems that do exist. If they can’t get good information, they will be completely defenseless against the virus.

This is not a hopeless problem.

We know exactly what to do.

For example, our affiliate SIL International has been coordinating a global effort to translate an informative “Wash Your Hands” poster into majority and minority languages around the world. In a few short weeks, this poster has already been translated into 523 of the world’s languages. Never before has a body of information been translated into so many languages in so short a time. You can click this link to see an interactive map of their efforts on the Ethnologue webpage, and download an informative pdf in any of the languages completed thus far.

This is one effort of many.

Our own executive Paul Frank has put together a Bloom book full of coronavirus information. If you know anything about Bloom, you know that this means that anyone can access this information. And by accessing the words and phrases from the book in this worksheet, anyone can help to get all of that information into more minority languages around the world.

a page from Dr. Frank’s coronavirus Bloom book

a page from Dr. Frank’s coronavirus Bloom book

These are small efforts to address an enormous problem, but they are also a vital first step that will make a potentially lifesaving difference in the lives of minority language speakers around the world.

SIL International will be investing enormous time and energy to meet the need for better medical messaging, ramping up the efforts they have already been taking.

Do you have a heart for minority language groups?

From now until the end of May, all donations to the SIL LEAD general fund will go to our joint effort with SIL International, as we work to bring the most basic information to the people with the greatest need.

Will you join us?