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NEWS RELEASE
For immediate use
Contact: Miriam Palacio, 919-933-0398
CHICLE celebrates 10th anniversary
An unprecedented flood of Latino immigrants into Chapel Hill and Carrboro in the 1990s created something of a crisis for public health workers, city workers, law enforcement, the judicial system, employers, retailers and others. Many people found themselves at a loss for words – Spanish words.
A group of six community-minded women from varied backgrounds but with a common interest in Spanish took notice. In a community with broad global interests, there was no independent language and cultural center to meet the area’s needs.
In 1999 they launched CHICLE, the Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education. They started small, teaching Spanish only, with the goal of growing to meet the needs of the community as they arose.
And grow they did.
From its beginnings in cramped quarters on West Franklin Street, behind the Mediterranean Deli, CHICLE has evolved into a far-ranging resource for language education, translators and interpreters. In 2004 CHICLE moved to Carrboro to spread out in generous, colorful spaces in Carr Mill Mall, above Weaver Street Market.
The 10 years have seen a lot of change in the community and in CHICLE.
“A lot of people have learned Spanish who needed it or wanted it to communicate with the people who have come here,” said Sharon Mújica, one of the founders who recently retired after many years as outreach director of Latin American Studies at UNC-CH. Many of those people and organizations, including the Orange County Sheriff’s deputies, Weaver Street Market employees, Butner Prison Employees, and thousands more, learned the language from CHICLE teachers.
“We now live in a multi-cultural community,” adds Jane Stein, a founder and CHICLE’s business manager and computer guru. “We didn’t then.” Stein was an adjunct professor in the School of Public Health at UNC-CH and worked as a research consultant in Africa, Asia, Mexico and Central America.
CHICLE reflects the community’s multi-culturalism in the 20 languages that have been taught there in classes or private lessons, including some exotic ones like Thai, Hindi and Farsi. Recently, it began a language and cultural education program for Karen for educators, health workers and others. Now the growing numbers of Karen people in the community, who had been forbidden to speak their language in their native Burma or the Thai refugee camps where many were forced to live — can begin to communicate in Karen with people trained at CHICLE.
The language courses and private lessons are popular with pleasure and business travelers and with spouses of foreigners. Some of CHICLE’s students embrace language study for the love of learning. One woman studies three languages simultaneously at CHICLE for the fun of it.
CHICLE also teaches children in popular summer camps and in classes throughout the year, supporting the schools system’s dual language program. And it provides lessons for home-schooled children.
CHICLE also provides translators for a wide range of clients. Besides translating such documents as transcripts, birth, marriage and divorce certificates, it translates early childhood training and information materials or research surveys and forms into Spanish from English.
Through its interpreting services, CHICLE has helped a number of businesses and agencies communicate in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro area with clients, patients and staff.
The institute has drawn on the talents and resources of one of the most diverse areas in the state. Few towns the size of Chapel Hill and Carrboro could produce teachers, translators and interpreters for so many languages.
There is a reason the name of CHICLE uses the word “institute” rather than “school.” From its beginning the founders set out to do more than teach language. Through cultural enrichment programs, they aimed to help people in the community understand the issues and problems and appreciate the cultural richness and resources of other countries. CHICLE’s regular lineup of Sunday programs have included topics ranging from flamenco dance to sustainable furniture to free trade coffee and Venezuelan politics, among many others.
“Being small,” Stein said, “we have been able to develop organically, responding to needs that we perceived or that discovered us. We pride ourselves on our responsiveness, knowing of course that a business as small as ours must be responsive to survive.”
The 10 years are, indeed, cause for celebration. The Small Business Administration, which provided assistance in launching CHICLE, reports that that only 31 percent of new employer establishments survive seven years.
CHICLE has certainly beaten the odds.
FACT SHEET
Besides Stein and Mújica, founders include:
Miriam Palacio, CHICLE’s program director. She ran a Mexican handicrafts import business for 18 years.
Paula Gildner works on a national research project on Latino health at UNC. She has taught English as a second language to Latino Farm Workers in North Carolina and serves on the board of El Centro Latino in Carrboro.
Diana McDuffee, former Carrboro alderman, is health sciences librarian at UNC and network director of the library system for the North Carolina Area Health Education Center.
Languages that we have taught:
Arabic • Greek • Portuguese
• Chinese - Mandarin • Hindi • Russian
• Czech • Italian • Slovak
• English • Japanese • Spanish
• Farsi • Karen • Thai •
French • Korean • Vietnamese
• German • Polish
Some special courses we have held:
• Conversation classes in French, German, Portuguese, Spanish
• Film courses in Spanish and English
• History in French and Spanish
• Play-readings in Spanish
• Short stories in English and French
• TOEFL
• Writing in English and Spanish
• Teacher immersions in Spanish
Where our staff comes from:
Argentina • Egypt • Mexico
• Brazil • France • Nicaragua
• Cameroon • Germany • Peru
• Chile • Greece • Portugal
• China • Iran • Puerto Rico
• Colombia • Italy • Spain
• Congo • Japan • Uruguay
• Cuba • Korea • United States
• Ecuador • Macedonia • Venezuela
• Vietnam
Cultural events:
As part of our community participation, we schedule free events a couple of Sundays a month.
Over the last several years we have had talks on the following countries:
Bolivia • Guatemala • Peru
• Colombia • India • United Arab Emirates
• Congo • Israel and Palestine • Uruguay
• Costa Rica • Lebanon • Venezuela• Cuba • Mexico • Vietnam
• Ecuador • Nepal
• France • Nicaragua
Talks on the following topics (and many more):
Afro-Peruvians • Food safety in Uruguay
• The Amazon Free trade coffee
• The Carnivore Preservation Trust • The Galapagos
• Chocolate production in Ecuador • Issues in the Gulf of Cortez
• Crafts and textiles in Latin America • Sustainable furniture
• Environmental topics in Cuba • Tikal
• Flamenco dance • Venezuelan politics
Book talks by authors on:
Drugs and violence in Colombia • Western China
• Heroes in LA • Poetry readings by local authors
• Soccer and the Siler City Latino community
Many movies including documentaries sponsored by PBS, films focusing on US issues with Latino subjects—life on the border, immigration, Latinos in Carrboro, day workers, farm workers, and Afro-American and Latino alliances
We have collaborated with the Institute for the Study of the Americas and El Pueblo on some of our talks, as well as with the Mallarme Chamber Players for several concerts and speakers.
Some data about our services
Our data is a little weak before June 2007 when we installed a database. Since that date, in about two and a half years, we have worked with at least
• 76 organizations
• 1160 students
• 121 staff members.
Some of our organizational clients
• Administrative Office of the Courts (Interpreting Hindi, Serbian, Spanish)
• All Kind of Minds (Translations)
• Be Better Networks (Translations)
• Butner prison employees (Spanish)
• Captrust (Translations, Interpreting)
• Carolina Dining Services (Interpreting, Translations, Cultural Training)
• Carolina Inn (Spanish, English)
• Carrboro Parks and Recreation (Translations)
• Chapel Hill News (Translations)
• Child Care Networks (Spanish, English)
• Child Care Services Association (Translations)
• Duke Medical School (Translations)
• Duke Physician Assistant students (Spanish)
• Duke Primary Care Research Consortium (Translations)
• Durham Public Library (Cultural Training)
• Durham School Administrators (Spanish)
• Environmental Protection Agency (Spanish)
• Eurosport (Translations)
• Family and Work Institute (Translations)
• Family Support Network of NC (Translations)
• FHI (French)
• Florida State University (Translations)
• Food Bank of Central North Carolina (Translations)
• Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (Translations)
• GKN Driveline (Translations and Spanish)
• Grape Arbor Development Corporation (Translations)
• Herald-Sun (Translations)
• Intrahealth (French and Portuguese)
• Ipas (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Interpreting)
• Kidzu (Translations)
• Mangiano’s restaurant (Spanish)
• Merrill-Pearson (Translations)
• National Board of Certified Counselors (Translations – Spanish, Portuguese, French, Russian, Arabic, Mandarin)
• NC Attorney General's Office (Translations)
• NC Bar Association (Translations - Spanish, Korean)
• NC Circle of Parents Network (Translations)
• NC DHHS Div. of Public Health Tobacco Prevention (Translations)
• NC Justice Center (Translations)
• Office of Educational Development (Translations)
• OPC - social services (Interpreting, Spanish, Cultural Training)
• Optimal Communications (Interpreting)
• Orange County Animal Control (Translations, Spanish)
• Orange County Board of Commissioners (Interpreting)
• Orange County Health Department (Interpreting)
• Orange County Human Resources (Spanish, Cultural Training)
• Orange County Human Rights (Special Spanish Assessment project)
• Orange County Sheriffs (Spanish)
• Orange County Solid Waste Management (Translations in Spanish, Japanese, Chinese)
• Pediatric Nurses at UNC (Spanish)
• Piedmont Health Services employees (Spanish, Translations)
• Planned Parenthood of Central NC (Translations)
• Private law firms (Interpreting, Translations)
• Probation officers (Spanish)
• Town of Carrboro (Spanish, Translations)
• UNC Carolina Population Center (Translations)
• UNC Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center (Translations Spanish, Arabic)
• UNC Department of Epidemiology (Translations)
• UNC Department of Family Medicine (Intensive Spanish)
• UNC Gillings School of Public Health (Translations)
• UNC Lineberger Cancer Center (Translations)
• UNC Medical School Dept. of Maternal and Infant Health (Translations)
• UNC Medical School Dept. of Pediatrics (Translations)
• UNC SPH NC Child Care Health and Safety Resource Center (Translations)
• UNC TEACCH Program (Translations)
• Wal-Mart (Spanish)
• Wavecom (French)
• Weaver Street Market (Interpreting, Spanish, English)
• Whole Foods (Spanish)
• WIC employees (Spanish)
• Youths 4 Advocacy (Translations)
Please call us at (919) 933-0398 or e-mail
us if you want more information.
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