Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Week 4

by Ann Abbott

This week we move on to the concepts of "mission" and "mission-based management."

Día 1, Semana 4

1.Combinación. We need to back up and remind ourselves of our guiding definitions in this course. Social entrepreneurship does two things:

• Creates social value.
• Combines business strategies with nonprofit value-creating values and practices.

2. La misión. The concept of organizational mission was popularized in the commercial realm, and now is also fundamental for non-profits. Your mission should be short, inspiring, and answer these two questions:

• ¿Cual es tu razón de ser?
• ¿Por qué existes?

It also fits within this commonly-used framework:

• Visión
• Misión
• Valores

3. Ejemplos. We'll take a look at some examples from organizations we've already looked at:

• Homeboy Industries.
• AUARA

4. Advinar la misión. Now we'll look at the concept of mission from a backwards perspective. In pairs, students will consider their experiences at the University of Illinois and try to write the university's mission statement. Then we'll look up Illinois' mission statement to see if they came close.

5. Tomar decisiones. The mission should make your organization work better, not just be a brilliant wordsmithing exercise. This is where the concept of mission-based management comes in. Whenever the organization has to make decisions, especially tough ones, they should do it based on their mission.

To analyze this, we will look at the Refugee Center's mission statement and services and follow these steps:

• Do the services match the mission?
• How would the mission guide your decisions in the following situations:
• You have to cut half your services.
• Of the remaining services, you are able to significantly expand just one of them.
• A very rich community member who is an animal lover offers to donate $250,000 for the Refugee Center to start a program that is somehow related to animals. 
• A volunteer comes to the Refugee Center wearing a Make America Great Again Tshirt.

6. Reflexión 1.  To wrap things up, we will go to our course learning management system, look at the assignment for Reflexión 1 and begin thinking, outlining, etc.

Día 2, Semana 4

Today we are going to pivot back to understanding the specific realities and events of our local Latino community. At the same time, I want to help students build the skills they need to be helpful during their CSL work.

1. Recado. As I always say, reading a complex message to students and asking them to write it down on a pink telephone message slip reveals how difficult this task is yet how often they need to do it during their CSL work in offices.

• I passed out the pink telephone message slips, read the following message once, and asked students to take down the message as best they could: "Consulado Mexicano. Las citas para el consulado Mexicano ya estan disponibles. Les sugiero a las personas que necesiten una cita que llamen a diario para asegurar que obtienen una. El numero es 1-877-639-4835. El Consulado Mexicano estara en el Independent Media Center en Urbana. Cuando llamen tienen que indicar que su cita la quieren para el consulado movil en Urbana los dias 14, 15 y 16 de febrero."
• I asked students to write down specific questions to ask me to help them fill out the message slip completely and accurately. (The first question was, "Could you please repeat the telephone number?") They did a great job and then compared their messages to each other for accuracy.

2. Informacion accesible. Then we moved to more information about the upcoming visit from the Mexican Mobile Consulate. The point I wanted to drive home to students is that you can provide information in Spanish, but if the people who need the information don't understand it, it's still not "accessible."

• First students read the following post in a group for local Latinos: 
• Tengo varios mensajes con preguntas sobre la doble ciudadania. Espero que este mensaje del consulado les aclare sus dudas. El tramite de la Doble Ciudadania requiere cita previa. Ese tramite en el consulado sobre ruedas consiste en la revisión de los documentos, integración del expediente y canalización para su captura a sede. Para esta etapa solo una persona puede llevar los documentos, es decir, no se requiere que los testigos o a los menores de edad esten presentes. DOBLE NACIONALIDAD Presentar la siguiente documentación en original: Acta de nacimiento de la persona a ser registrada “versión larga”, en la que debe especificarse el lugar, la fecha y la hora de nacimiento, así como el nombre completo y fecha de nacimiento de los padres, nombre del hospital y nombre del médico que atendió el parto. El original no se devolverá. Identificación del menor según su edad: Si el registrado es menor de seis años, podrá presentar certificado de alumbramiento expedido por el hospital, identificación del Estado ó pasaporte como identificación; si el registrado es mayor de seis años, deberá presentar una identificación oficial vigente (pasaporte, identificación escolar ó del estado ó licencia de manejo).

• 

  These are the questions students needed to answer for themselves.

  I told students to imagine that they needed to help a client go through this process. That means that you need to understand the instructions yourself before you can help someone else understand them. Write down a list of the information in this message that you need to find out more about. (Examples that emerged were: What is the Mobile Mexican Consulate? What is a long form birth certificate? What is the difference between un acta de nacimiento and a certficado de alumbramiento? How do you get official copies of documents if the Consulate doesn't return the originals?)
• Then students had ten minutes to work with their group to search for the answers to their questions and inform themselves. 
• Finally, I passed out large pieces of paper and markers and asked students to make a simplified visual guide in Spanish about the process. We ran out of time, but I had wanted them to put them on the walls and present them.

Again, the main point of the class is that speaking Spanish is not enough; we have to inform ourselves about things we don't even know in English to be able to help our clients access the services that they have the right to. And presenting information in Spanish is not enough; if it is not easily understood, it is still not accessible.