Ciudad Juarez.- As part of their rights to access information, the municipal administration began to translate documents for indigenous communities, such as an anti-tobacco campaign and the call for a Participatory Budget for next year, it was reported at a meeting of the Indigenous Peoples Council commission.
Rosalinda Guadalajara Reyes, coordinator of the Indigenous Liaison Unit of the Municipal Women’s Institute, said that the majority of indigenous people living in the city do not speak Spanish and that is why it is important that these translations be made into their native language.
“Young people who have had the opportunity to attend school speak Spanish, but adults speak the basics or do not understand it,” he said.
He said that according to statistics from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI), eight thousand indigenous people from communities such as Chinantecas, Mazahuas, Purépecha, Rarámuri, Mixtecs, Otomi, Nahuatl and others live in the city.
“There is no exact figure because many times in the interviews that Inegi conducts, they don’t ask if we are indigenous, they only ask if we are speakers, and there are many people who no longer speak their mother tongue,” he explained.
The director of the Development and Infrastructure area of the Social Development Directorate, Yesenia Arlet Hidalgo González, said that there are 14 indigenous communities settled in the city.
“We have carried out translation exercises with some departments, such as the anti-smoking campaign that was carried out with the Health Department,” he said.
He stressed that the aim is now to work on translating the call for proposals for the Participatory Budget programme for the 2025 financial year.
For her part, Councilor Austria Galindo, a member of the commission, pointed out that it is important that all calls for proposals issued by the Municipality be completely transparent so that everyone can participate.
In addition, in the case of translations, she said that it is a matter of preserving the mother tongue, so this work would be a mechanism to preserve them. (Araly Castañón)
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