In Storm Lake, our health care facilities, businesses, and schools, heavily rely on local interpreters for the approximately 30 different languages spoken in Storm Lake.  Of these many community interpreters, only two are certified interpreters. Certification is a difficult and costly process-- most of our community interpreters will most likely not become certified—so SALUD provides monthly Interpreter Workshops so they can learn the basic mechanics and ethics of interpreting.  These workshops are led by Prof. Piet Koene from Northwestern College in Orange City, IA., who is a State and Federal Court and Medical Interpreter in Iowa and Minnesota.

Additionally, we recently started offering student interpreter workshops for 11th and 12th grade bilingual students.   Our goals in offering workshops to these students are to:

1. Teach them the basic mechanics and ethics of interpreting.

2. Make them aware of situations, as a minor, in which they should NOT be interpreting.

3. Consider interpreting/translation as a possible career choice.