Matahari Runs the New York Marathon for Language Justice
IN LESS THAN 2 DAYS! Theo Belizario is running The NYC Marathon on November 6, 2016, and Monique Nguyen is running her first 5K the day before (Dash to the Finish Line)! Collectively we are running 29.3 miles (26.2 mi + 3.1 mi) together next weekend! We are running to fundraise for the vital Language Justice work of Matahari Women Workers' Center. PLEASE GIVE US A CONTRIBUTION OF $5 (FOR MO'S 1st 5K) OR $20+ (FOR THEO'S RUNNING 26.2 mi)!
Matahari is a women's social justice organization working to end gender violence and exploitation through community organizing, leadership development, community and policy change. Matahari is a leading force in advancing the rights of domestic workers, immigrant families, and survivors of violence and exploitation.
What is language justice?
Language justice is the right everyone has to communicate in the language in most comfortable -- the language of our tongues, hearts, minds, and dreams.
A key to our organizing model is engaging women and families across cultures and languages -- as violence and exploitation is an unjust shared experience across all communities and we believe that the movement to end it will require all people and across many languages.
Our current programming operates 95% bilingual (English and Spanish) through translation of all written materials, language interpretation (simultaneous and consecutive) of all meetings, workshops, trainings, and events.
For 2017, we are aiming to welcome and transition 3 additional languages into our community: Brazilian Portuguese, Haitian Kreyol, and Nepali. That means more communities will have access to our Beyond Survival anti-labor trafficking campaign, Family Unity/Anti-deportation campaigns, Workforce Development Trainings, Leadership trainings, public advocacy days and much more!
Multilingual/Language Justice is hard work and expensive! We build a community and train bilingual people to become social justice interpreters/communicators and purchase and maintain interpretation equipment systems. Here are some examples how much things cost!
$800/per transmitter (the device that interpreters speak into) that can be heard by 100s of people at a single event. E.g. our largest event has 150 ppl* and up to 4 languages are spoken.
$20/per receiver (devices that participants wear to hear interpretations) of an event of 150 people that is $3000 (150x$20). We currently have 70 headsets, help us get more!
$18-50/ per hour of wages for interpreters and translators. Over the year we use hundreds of services hours. Thankful for volunteers, but we rely heavily on professionals and want to make sure people are paid for their valuable contributions.
PLEASE CONSIDER DONATING INCREMENTS OF $5 AND $20 TO OUR CAMPAIGN!
Matahari is fiscally sponsored by Third Sector New England.