KU News Release

KU Work Group awarded grant to translate materials into Spanish

LAWRENCE — An Internet-based “tool box” that helps individuals and communities around the world tackle complex social problems has received a major boost from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas, which is affiliated with the Life Span Institute, has received more than $60,000 for its Community Tool Box project to complete the translation of its materials into Spanish.

The Community Tool Box is the world’s largest source of free information on essential skills for building healthy communities. According to Cesáreo Fernández, postdoctoral researcher for the KU Work Group, the grant will be used to culturally and linguistically adapt materials for Spanish-speaking populations.

“One of our goals is to translate and adapt the Community Tool Box into Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic to make it useful around the world,” Fernández said. “We especially want to have the Community Tool Box widely available in the Americas, where a substantial part of the population speaks Spanish.”

Because of the demand for materials in Spanish, the KU Work Group has been collaborating with partners and volunteers in Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, the United States, Uruguay and Venezuela as well as with the Pan American Health Organization. Still, only one-third of the materials have been translated since the project launched in 1995.

“The grant means that we can translate the remaining materials, nearly 5,000 pages, in one year,” Fernández said.

The Community Tool Box averages 667 unique visits a day, 32 percent from outside the United States. Recently it was selected by the Public Broadcasting System for inclusion on Your America: Democracy’s Local Heroes, a site that features resources to bring about change at the individual, organizational, community and national levels.

The KU Work Group is a designated World Health Organization Collaborative Centre for Community Health and Development. Since 1996, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has supported the Community Tool Box with four grants totaling $1.6 million.

The Life Span Institute is one of the largest research and development programs in the nation for the prevention and treatment of developmental disabilities. The institute includes 13 centers and more than 140 programs and projects located on the Lawrence campus, the KU Medical Center, Kansas City, Overland Park and Parsons.

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