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[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, you're live. Right, welcome back everyone. To juggle the agenda a little bit again today, we had another budget request come in. So we wanted to afford, opportunity for some stakeholder groups to speak directly to the committee on the request. There is a request letter and a budget breakdown that has been posted to our committee page. And I guess we'll start off with our guest on Zoom. We have a house Seger or Seger?
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Seger.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. Very nice to meet you, and welcome to the committee.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Yeah. Well, thank you. I was given ten minutes warning about this. So I can either just
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you for your nimbleness. Yes.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Absolutely. No, this is really important. I can read out what I wrote or you could ask me questions, which would be the best thing to do?
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Let's start with your written statement. Just read that for us and we can review while you speak and then we can take it from there.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Okay, super, thank you. So my name is Alison Seger and I'm the executive director and founder of the Vermont Language Justice Project. And we're requesting funding to create evergreen videos, or video sections to respond to specific kinds of disasters, such as power outages, water boil advisories, an earthquake, or a hazardous chemical spill. Those are a few examples. To produce six videos, each in 15 languages, spoken commonly throughout the month, including English, would cost $65,457.45. So the Vaumelle Language Justice Project has always responded to crises. We were established in 2020. I set the project up to respond to the COVID pandemic by distributing safety messages in the 10 most commonly spoken languages in Vermont. The videos were posted on YouTube and translations were sent to school districts, Inchertin County and the Vermont Department of Health. And the audio files were also distributed to school districts and sent out on their robocall systems. In July 2023, we responded to the severe flooding in Vermont within twenty four hours, with messages in 16 languages about how to say how to stay safe during flooding and very heavy rainfall. Within a week, our videos had reached over 2,000 views, and by mid September had been viewed over 7,000 times. And in 2024, when there was more flooding, we we put out those videos again. This past week, we put out a video in collaboration with the Mont Asylum Assistance Project in 12 languages about how to prepare for possible ICE detention or arrest, and within five days our videos had been watched over 2,000 times. So many people access websites in times of emergency, and some websites are quite cumbersome and often require detective work to find the information needed. We at VLGP continue to be informed by people with language access needs that websites in English are also they're almost impossible to navigate if you don't speak or read English. If you can't read or write in your own language, it's impossible. And if your language isn't a written language, it's hopeless. The current emergency management website has many great resources for folks with language access needs, but they are difficult to find and are all written. They're all written. There's no videos, and the title is only in English. So you don't even know what you're going to be reading if you can find your way to that that translation. It's very clear that video spoken in multiple languages distributed through VLJP's wide network of service providers, service users, and community members has been extremely successful. In the case of an emergency, Vermont Language Justice Project can respond with information in multiple languages, in multiple formats, translations, audio files, and video, usually within twenty four hours. No translation service can provide this, and no one, within the state has the wide distribution network that we have. The cost to produce these six videos in 15 languages, including English, will be, like I said, $65,000.457, blah blah. That's it. And I suppose I just wanna add, so last week, two weekends ago, there was a water boil alert in the South End Of Burlington where I live. I fortunately found out about it through Front Porch Forum, and then I was able to navigate to BPW's website where I was able find the map of where the water outage was, which was suggesting boil boiling your water. And I kind of was able to navigate that map and was able to see that actually I could continue to just drink water. But if I didn't read Front Porch Forum, I wouldn't have known about it. I wouldn't, particularly if I didn't read English, I would definitely not have known about it. And I think about the people in my own neighborhood as a South End Burlington person who were continuing to drink the water, even though more educated English readers, who can navigate websites and maps are new to boil their water. So this is just like a tiny example of how we could do evergreen messaging so that if there was an emergency, messages could be sent out to people who speak different languages, who don't read or write in their own language.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Hango.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Yes, thank you for being here on short notice. We learned that you were in the building and we had just received your request. So this works out perfectly for us and well, you're not in the building, but there are folks in the building who are representing you. So with Vermont Emergency Management, can your videos be provided, once you make them, be provided to Vermont Emergency Management to be posted on their website and distributed through their channels?
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Yeah, totally. I mean, we've worked with them before. We were lucky when we had, when this project started up and we were fully funded through a grant through the CDC. When the flooding happened, I knew we had to make the videos. We didn't have any money to make them, and I worked with emergency management to make videos and then they were able to distribute them. That was a luxury then because we had this big CDC grant. We can't do that now, but we have a good relationship with the Emergency Management Department and they know who we are. We sat on a committee with them last year to actually put forth our thoughts about language access and how we need to reach people who aren't being reached right now. So some of that work has already been done.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Great. Thank you. And can you tell me how you currently distribute, disseminate information Yeah. For your Sure. Project?
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: So our videos go up on YouTube, and we have over 2,600 subscribers to that channel. That and those are subscribers actually all over the world, but predominantly in The US and a significant large number in Vermont. So they go up on YouTube. We send out we send out information through social media, when we whenever we make a new video. We also send the video back to each translator who's a community leader. They send it out into their own communities, so it kind of comes in and goes out. That's another way that we do it. And then we also have a mailing list of over 400 community groups and individuals who we send out the information to. So we have a very robust system, is Vermont wide actually, about how to get messaging out. Thank you.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Windsor Waters Evans.
[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Hello. Do I need the distribution? Sorry. I'm gonna ask my question differently. Do schools receive your information? And if so, how?
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Can you say that again? I'm sorry.
[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Do schools receive your information? And if so, how? Schools. Yeah, schools.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Yeah, no, they absolutely. Particularly, we have very close relationships with Burlington and Winooski school districts, and also Addison County and in Brattleboro and in Rutland. And they are all on our mailing list when we send videos out. And Burlington and Wannusky, I just thinking back to the pandemic, we would send them our audio files, and then they would put them through system. So in the same way that, you know, I used to get all those messages, there's no school today because it's snowing, Burlington Wernuske have those robocall systems set up in different languages, in different language groups. So we would send them a Nepali one, for example, and they would send out a message about whatever it was, flooding, to the Nepali speakers in their community. So yeah, we have really good relationships with schools.
[Rep. Chea Waters Evans (Ranking Member)]: Thank you.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Any other questions from the rest of the table? So this is very much a continuation of existing work?
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: It is. And if I was to be really honest, sometimes what keeps me awake at night, which is really crazy, but if there was to be an earthquake tomorrow, nobody would know what to do. If there was to be a massive chemical spill tomorrow, nobody would know what to do. And I like to think if we could get one step ahead of the game, this would actually be really helpful. And remember please that these messages are also in English. So, and if you think about not everybody who's an English speaker knows how to navigate websites. Not everybody who's an English speaker knows how to read and write of a level that can get them to a website. So our videos are in English as well as other languages. And I think about some of these major things, and I just get really worried about it. How will people get to know?
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Representative Hooper, then rep Hanko.
[Rep. Philip Jay Hooper (Member)]: Thank you. Hi, Allison. Hi. Just to make sure you're shooting the video and then overdubbing languages to it. You're not creating individual videos for each.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: That's correct. So we make the we make our initial video in English, and then we I'm a filmmaker when I'm not doing this and being a social worker. And then we chop it up and put the language in. Yeah. None of it is using AI. We we use our people to do it.
[Rep. Philip Jay Hooper (Member)]: Do you also do you wanna sign?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Or
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: If if I'm just looking at we do. We when people request so we do fee for service for a lot of organizations. And I don't have that in our current budget for ASL, but we are frequently doing ASL videos when people ask for it. And I'd be happy to send in another one, another estimate with ASL. I could do that that in the next twenty minutes if that would be helpful.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Representative Hango? Yeah.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: That was my question. So, yes, I would like to see what that would cost.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Yeah. I have to say requests. We've probably done about 60 or 70 videos in ASL, but I I the the one thing that is more difficult, and I I would have to talk we use Vankro, which is statewide service. It's the turnaround isn't going to be so quick if there was an emergency because they have a whole procedure. We don't have any control over them. But that said, if we were doing evergreen messaging, we could absolutely have those ready to go as well. So I can I can who would I send that updated bank for?
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: Said send it to our committee assistant, Nick.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Oh, okay. I have his email. I can do that. Sure. I'll send that over in the next fifteen minutes.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yeah. He's sort of like the central warehouse for all of this stuff.
[Rep. Lisa Hango (Vice Chair)]: And he and he can break out the budget that you sent us already, and then break out the ASL separately, so we know what that is. Thank you.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Yeah, you're welcome.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, anything else for our guests? All right, and that does afford us about ten minutes before we head back up to the floor. Thank you so much for our time, and we'll take a look for that email. And, again, thank you for being so quick to respond.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: No, I'm really happy that you got to invite me. I appreciate it a lot. Thank you for all you do.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Thank you.
[Alison Seger, Executive Director and Founder, Vermont Language Justice Project]: Thank you. Take care. Bye bye.
[Rep. Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Yep. Alright, folks. That is a wrap on the committee's schedule for today. Tomorrow morning, we're in a budget request. We may working on the budget now, and we may be taking up a component of work on a a issue regarding the out of Randolph. So that's a little bit of a TBD. We're still trying to work out some details on that, but definitely tomorrow is gonna be heavy on budget memo conversation and then also our miscellaneous military on this bill. But with that, take us off for today. Good work, folks. You got