Completion of the Civically Engaged Scholars course has given me time to look back at the things I’ve learned, the experiences I’ve had, and the connections I’ve made while working to be more civically engaged. Civic engagement - especially within the Deaf community - is an important part of being an ethical and effective interpreter. Interpreters are inherently in a self-elected position of power. This creates a great need to work to be interpreters who don’t just profit from their work in the Deaf community and go back home to their own lives, but instead give back, serve, engage with, and support the Deaf community.
The most challenging civic engagement concept for me was Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility. While I did enjoy the new things I learned about this topic (for instance, that if companies focus on doing good, good profits tend to follow as a natural by product), I think it was the most challenging for me because it is an area that I haven’t participated in much in the past. I also didn’t have ready ideas about how to engage in Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Responsibility. I have spent time involved in many of the other areas of civic engagement and so they felt more natural. Corporate Social Responsibility also feels a bit far removed from me personally. I am self-employed and when I’m not working or in school, I am at home taking care of my kids. Thinking about how to get a corporation to be more socially responsible and care for their employees and the environment seems like a gigantic mountain to climb. It’s hard to know where to even start even though I can see the value in the concept.
The civic engagement concept that I related to the most was Direct Service. Direct Service feels easily accessible. There are opportunities all around - large and small. This is an area that I’ve tried to engage in already in my life in areas outside of the Deaf and interpreting community- helping gather donations for refugee families, taking meals to people in need, community clean up projects, serving on the event committee of a childhood cancer charity, etc. Because of my prior experiences, relating and extending this concept to the Deaf community felt easy. After graduation, this civic engagement concept will continue to manifest as I volunteer at the Deaf Center and volunteer with the Parent-Infant Program (PIP). In my future career as an interpreter, I can incorporate civic engagement into my work. One way to do this is by volunteer interpreting for Deaf individuals in religious settings, weddings, funerals, family reunions, and other places where paid interpreters typically don’t work, but interpreting is still needed. Opportunities like this are a great intersection of work and service. Volunteer interpreting would be an act of service that uses my skills to fulfill a need in the Deaf community for fully accessible communication in all settings.