Grant Funds Make Refugee and Immigrant Library Welcome Video Possible
Imagine, if you will, a young family moving to the Springfield area with hopes of earning a living and providing all the educational opportunities available to help their children have an even better life. Now imagine that family doesn’t speak English.
The library’s overriding goal to enrich and improve the quality of life for all citizens extends to that family, and many others like it. We’ll soon add another service to make that possible.
A new $8,403 grant will help us in the next year develop a video in five different languages to serve as a welcome to the library and an introduction to how the library can help them and their children be successful in life. Based on the size of Springfield’s immigrant population, the videos will be produced in Arabic, Burmese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili.
The project is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State.
Library staff for years have partnered with the Springfield Public Schools’ English Language Learners Program, or ELL, to reach the largest number of immigrant children and families in the area. We’ll continue to partner with the ELL program and host family literacy nights at the schools to show the videos and provide translated library materials.
Librarians say that families are always excited to learn about our services and often register for library cards. In one instance, a parent was able to use Tumble Books at the library (thelibrary.org/tumblebooks) with their 3-year-old child, and were thrilled to find it a fun tool for both of them to learn English together.
“This project would allow us to reach many more families and open communication with new partners to help share our message,” writes grant coordinator and library staffer Tysha Shay. Once it’s completed and ready to share, Tysha anticipates the Refugee and Immigrant Library Welcome Video will serve about 2,500 non/limited-English-speaking persons per year.
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