What's new in the New Year for World Speaks?

WHAT'S NEW IN THE NEW YEAR?

Alt Text: A collage of people in different locations. First, a woman in glasses poses, smiling at the camera. Second, a classroom setting with a teacher talking to students. Third, two men stand in front of a kitchen range. Four, several people stand outside in the sunshine and smile and wave at the camera.

Hi Reader,

As we ring in the New Year with plans for 2025, we wanted to share a roundup of things that are happening in the first part of the year!

First, you’ve met Cruz Cabrera, our Interpretation & Linguistic Manager, who joined us in the middle of last year. In 2025, Cruz will be World Speaks’ fourth full-time employee! Cruz has done an incredible job so far at World Speaks, and we are so excited that she is joining us full-time.

Spring Classes will open in early March, bringing our community more opportunities to learn Spanish, American Sign Language and English in the new year. If you are new to the World Speaks family, classes are FREE thanks to a grant from the Weitz Family Foundation and only require a $15 registration fee. If you want to register early and secure a spot – you are in the right place! All newsletter subscribers get a head start on registering. Check your email in the first week of March for our first registration email of the year!

Language Access Week, our weeklong celebration of language access & language justice in Nebraska, is back for its second year! Mark your calendars for June 9-13, 2025, for a weeklong celebration of those working towards language access in our communities! We’re planning Language Access Week now, and we’ll share more later this spring!

And as for Open Doors, the program we launched last January, it is still going strong! Since our launch, we’ve established a reliable network with partners like the CIRA (Center for Immigrant and Refugee Advancement) and Restoring Dignity. We’ve conducted translation and interpretation for organizations involved in housing justice and we hope 2025 will allow Open Doors to remain a pivotal tool for promoting equity and celebrating linguistic diversity!

All of this happens thanks to the generosity of our supporters! While we didn’t reach our end of year giving goal of $2,000, you helped us raise $1,533 at the end of 2024! The money donated will help us with our educational efforts, provide support for our work with Open Doors, and help us with class materials, facilities and more for our community classes!

We know that language access will be more important in 2025 than ever – and if you want to be more involved, scroll to the end of this email to see how you can help World Speaks in 2025!

How Did World Speaks Get Its Start?

Last October, our Executive Director, Leah Whitney Chavez received the Metro Young Latino Professionals Association (MYLPA) Latinx Ally of the Year Award! To celebrate, MYLPA via Si Se Puede Omaha made a short video highlighting Leah’s work, including the origin story of World Speaks! We are excited to share the story (and the video) with you! It’s inspiring to hear how Leah took her desire to help people feel understood and created a home for language justice in our community! Thanks to the support of the Latinx community, World Speaks was started and with their support, we continue to grow. You can watch the video below, or click here to watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/LTOdVu25Jjg

Language Access Learning

Did you think English is the official language of the United States? Guess again!

The United States doesn’t have an official language! While English is the most widely spoken language, and many states have designated it the official language, the United States does not have an official language.

In fact, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, people in the United States communicate in more than 350 languages. The most widely spoken other than English are Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Arabic.

Three states actually have more than one language designated as the official language – Hawaii is bilingual, with Hawaiian and English sharing the official language designation, South Dakota has designated both English and Sioux as its official languages and Alaska has added more than 20 native languages to its official languages, including Tlingit, Inupiaq, and Siberian Yupik.

Exciting news from our friends at the Nebraska Commission on Latino Americans! Thanks to Legislative Bill 254, which passed in 2023’s Legislative Session, all Nebraska Legislative broadcasts will have live Spanish-Language captions through Nebraska Public Media! Learn more about this initiative at: https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/about/pressroom/press-releases/nebraska-public-media-adds-spanish-language-captioning-to-legislative-tv-coverage/

After a week full of action planning for 2025, the World Speaks team joined 8 other organizations from around the Omaha area to help set up an apartment for a refugee family who will be settling in Omaha!

It was great to work on a service project together & contribute with other teams in our community!

GET INVOLVED

Want to join World Speaks in our work? There are several ways you can do so!

Volunteer! We are always looking for native speakers interested in being in-class mentors. We’d love to have you join us this spring!
Donate – We didn’t meet our 2024 donation goal, but if you want to help us in 2025, click the link! Every little bit helps.
Visit our store for unique World Speaks notebooks featuring Linx the Language Cat (perfect for taking notes at your community language class)!!