As a part of ENCompass, I have had the opportunity to volunteer at local clinics and help them find resources in the Columbus area to improve their daily life. I haven’t been able to volunteer as much as I would like, but I think that with my new position at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital (or more specifically a clinic in Columbus) , I will finally be able to do an official consultation with a family.
I have volunteered for two weeks now, but I haven’t had a consultation yet. However, I have learned so much about the difficulties of helping inner city residents. One of the biggest lessons I learned was about the language barrier. The majority of patients in the clinic are Mexican immigrants and Somalian refugees, most of whom are unfamiliar with the English language. When we found this out on the first day, we realized we were in for an interesting day. We had interpreters on iPads who could help us out throughout the consultation process, where we find the resources the families need, but the main difficulty was informing the patients of what we do and where we are located if they wish to see us. We could not use the iPads because it cost money every time we called an interpreter. Additionally, the interpreters at the clinic were busy with their own jobs. We could not expect them to lay everything down to help us. So, what to do?
We started by translating all our flyers to the languages the Somalian and Spanish patients would speak. We had some professional help with this. Additionally, we made sure to be as simple and clear as we could when talking to the patients. We made sure to highlight key words that they would recognize, like “food” and “house”. This has certainly helped, but our group still has not had many consultations, so I think there are more to do. I think we could involve the translators at the clinic, just at certain time periods. Maybe we could ask them to help every 20 minutes? I don’t know, but at least I am thinking of solutions. If it doesn’t work, we can find another solution. Additionally, I think the patients are just wary of approaching us. They are definitely not familiar with the area, and especially in this social climate, they may be scared. After all, there is a significant language barrier, and I understand their caution in approaching something new. However, I am sure that in the coming months, as our presence at the clinic becomes more familiar, they will warm up to us and allow us to help them.
I have also become interested in learning Spanish again. I stopped in Junior year of High School, but I really want to learn it now. It not only is incredibly important given the multicultural society we live in now, it seems fun as well. I’m glad experiences like these are making me think outside my comfort zone and showing me new reasons to try different things.