PA Dutch Court Certified Interpreter Training Introductory Workshop
Date/Time: Thursday, April 20th from 11AM-1PM
Location: Historic Schoolhouse at Risser Mennonite Church
                 8360 Elizabethtown Road Elizabethtown, PA 17022

Scenario #1: Imagine you are a little Amish girl who speaks only PA Dutch in the dialect of your local church community, and you’ve been sexually abused. You are taken to a Child Advocacy Center where a man who does not speak the kind of PA Dutch you know interviews you. In your culture, a girl or woman would never talk to a man about sexual things, and this particular man is of an ethnicity you have never seen before; he is dressed in clothes that look very strange to you; and PA Dutch is not his native tongue. When you get out of the interview, you tell your mom you could not understand his PA Dutch, and you were very scared. Your case is not going to move forward – because you did not disclose. 

You will go back to the farm, and the uncle or brother or grandfather who molested you will likely do it again. And your mom will be in trouble with the church for going to outsiders.

Scenario #2: Imagine what the outcome might have been if you had been interviewed by an interpreter who is an Amish woman. She speaks your language, and she looks like other women in your life. She understands your idiomatic expressions and you feel safe with her.
 
Scenario #1 is happening all too often in counties across PA with Amish populations. To shift to Scenario #2, we need to get Amish women trained as certified court interpreters. 

LEARN MORE at our Introductory Workshop:  April 22nd at Historic Schoolhouse at Risser Mennonite Church from 11AM to 1PM.

​This Introductory Workshop will provide information on how to become a PA Court Certified Interpreter.  There will be forms available to sign up to begin the process, if you would like to do serve your community in this way, as well as people to answer your questions.  A light lunch will be available by 10:45 AM thanks to several Plain women who have volunteered to help.  There is no cost to attend the workshop, but you must RSVP.  Space is limited.
 
To RSVP for the Workshop, we need your contact information:  name, address, phone number and email (if you have an email)
Please call us at 717-560 -989. You may leave a message to let us know you want to attend the workshop and give us your contact information; OR
RSVP by email with your contact information  to info@safecommunitiespa.org.  Please include Interpreter Workshop on the subject line; OR RSVP on-line by clicking the button below.  ​

Register for Workshop