Community Engaged Learning

INTR 1100 Connections to Community I - Final Reflection 

INTR 1110 Connections to Community II - Final Reflection 

INTR 2100 Connections to Community III - Final Reflection 

Throughout the summer semester, I have been able to enhance my goal of being an ally for the Deaf community by being involved in a few events and interpreting. I have also been consistently interpreting for an older gentleman for his church services. He and his wife have become dear friends and I truly enjoy when I get to see them. As I have consistently shown up to provide pro bono interpreting for him, he has allowed me into his life and allowed me to practice interpreting. He is incredibly patient with me and thanks me for interpreting every time. He has sent me text messages of encouragement, hope, and gratitude. I learned that by providing direct service to those in the Deaf community we are building rapport and trust. They know that we will be their allies through thick and thin.  

          By being involved in Civically Engaged Learning, I have also had the opportunity to volunteer at the Robert G. Sanderson Community Center of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing’s Spring Festival and the Utah Independent Living Center’s Tooele Car Show. As I participated in these events, I noticed the dwindling number of people in attendance. I suspect that the Sanderson Center may just not have enough funds to put on a larger more extravagant event. If they had more funds provided by philanthropy donations, then maybe they could provide more activities. The Sanderson Center would also benefit from philanthropy work by having more volunteers who give their time to help at these larger events. The Utah Independent Center has recently been forced into cut-backs due to a lack of funds, requiring several employees to be laid off. This will mean fewer services available to the members there. ASL classes will be cancelled which will be a hindrance to those who are deafened later in life. A philanthropic approach to these problems would be to donate more of my time to these centers that are trying to provide services for the Deaf community.

        Being engaged in the Deaf community is a way to express my values of the importance of serving others, commitment to a cause, appreciation for diversity, and community involvement. I have been able to see these values develop and increase in myself through these experiences. In turn, when the Deaf community’s projects they envisioned are brought to life they are expressing their values of inclusion, communication, and gathering.

         While volunteering at the events put on by the Deaf community, I have met several people who left strong impressions on me. One man I met was one of the owners of Five Star Interpreting. He told me how when his son was born and had to be in the NICU, there were no interpreting services provided to him by the hospital for the entire length of stay his son was there. He established Five Star Interpreting so that other Deaf people would not have to go through the same experience as him. I was so impressed by his desire to help other people. Sometimes our toughest experiences in life can be turned around as a way to help people in the future. I hope that my experiences now, while in the Interpreter Training Program will help prepare me for a future of service. I want to be able to leave an impression on the Deaf community that I am an ally.

INTR 2200 Interpreting III - Final Reflection 

INTR 2600 Internship II - Final Reflection