The Speakers’ Bureau is an important component of the work of PALS for Health because all too often, limited English proficient (LEP) patients are denied access to, or quality of, health care services.  Due to their inability to communicate in English, their voices are silenced.  The Speakers Bureau is designed to empower LEP patients to harvest strength and power from their stories to advocate for their rights to language assistance.

Since its inception in 2003, the Speakers’ Bureau has trained a cadre of clients and patients whose rights to language assistance have been denied or ignored by providers to become spoke persons for communities speaking a variety of languages, including Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Thai.

Our Speakers’ Bureau training, “Learning How to Share Your Story”, is 12-hour long and is conducted in-language to provide limited English proficient patients with practical skills in public speaking, language rights and advocacy.  Through this process, the Language Ambassadors learn to capture and convey their own personal experiences navigating the health care systems as limited English proficient patients.  The training helps each participant to develop and present their own personal experiences navigating the health care system as limited English proficient individuals to diverse audiences, including media, elected officials, hospital administrators and his/her community.  As Language Ambassador, participants are provided with practical tools to raise awareness in his/her community about the importance of trained health care interpreters and also to empower other limited English proficient individuals to speak up for their language rights.

 PALS for Health is proud to share with you a collection of personal stories from our Language Ambassadors, whose powerful narratives were told in their own imagery and voices.  It is through their self-empowerment that issue of cultural and linguistic barriers to accessing and receiving quality health care services is pushed to the forefront of the political and healthcare agenda.  “In the Absence of Words” was made possible through the generous support of The California Endowment and can be viewed at:

http://tcenews.calendow.org/pr/tce/document/In_the_Absence_of_Words.pdf.

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