In Nerja on Thursday June 29 the AVISA volunteers were able to meet up in a relaxed fashion for the first time since the pandemic.

 

The reason for our get together was not only to meet those interpreters who have joined us recently, but also to say goodbye to two colleagues and remember one who we sadly lost recently.

 

Iraima has been a volunteer in Nerja for seven years, attending to the needs of people there conscientiously and with dedication. We wish her every success with the new business she has started in Nerja.

 

Eufemia, a founder member of AVISA and our first secretary, has dedicated 18 years of her retirement to helping thousands of people both with love and professionalism in both Nerja and the hospital.  She continues to live in Nerja, where she can now enjoy this, her second retirement.

 

Anthony, Our first president, sadly left us in April this year and we wanted to pay tribute to him in the presence of his wife, Sheilah. There are details about Anthony in an earlier post, below -  suffice to say here that he was a very well-known, well-respected and much-loved colleague, who dedicated 18 years of his life to helping people in Nerja and at the hospital. 

 

Daniel speaks about his good friend and compatriot, Anthony, to Sheilah (left), Eufemia (centre) and Iraima (right).

 

 

 

It  is with great sadness that we announce the death, at the age of 87, of Anthony Shearman, the first president of the association of volunteer interpreters, AVISA.

He died at home on Good Friday afternoon, following a fall.

Anthony had all the hallmarks of a typical English gentleman but was actually born and raised in Chile and for many years worked in several different countries before retiring to Nerja.

Together with others, Anthony founded the association AVISA some 18 years ago, when he was working as a volunteer in the Nerja health centre. Since then he worked together with his wife Sheilah two days a week in Nerja and another at the Axarquia hospital. As well as this commitment, he regularly covered for absent colleagues. He was a member of the association’s committee and coordinated the work of the interpreters in Nerja.

Anthony’s departure will leave a great void in the lives of many people: so many years dedicated to helping others mean that he was widely known and enormously respected. He worked with efficiency, dignity, empathy and above all a caring attitude. He will always be remembered with great affection by all the staff in the health service, the patients and their families, and his colleagues.

Our thoughts are with his family.  Rest in peace, Anthony, a dear and much-loved colleague.

 

 

 

Joan's dedicatrion and professionalism was an example to all. She served as a volunteer interpreter for eleven years and was the secretary of the association AVISA for eight. She will always be remembered for her kind disposition, empathy and her eternal smile.

She was well´known in Canillas de Albaida, where she lived and in the area around Competa as the "go´to person" whenever anyone needed help with the Spanish language and bureaucracy.

 

She will be sadly missed by all who knew her.

 

 

During 2019 our volunteer interpreters have carried out a total of 14,565 jobs compared to 13,480 the previous year. 12,101 of these were in the hospital  (11,327 in 2018) and In the health centre in nerja, 2,462 (2,153 in 2018).  A job might consist simply of a phone call in a foreign language or translating between a patient or family member and the hospital staff. We work in all sections of the hospital at the request of the professionals and we are available from 8:30 to 14:30 on work days.

 

Once again we give a big thank you to all the members of the Phoenix Club, especially to those who organised the collection of money for the generous donation.

This year the Phoenix Club has donated 800 euros to our association. The money will be spent on administrative costs - insurance, the website, etc. and also will conrtibute towards the travel expenses of our 35 volunteers at the Axarquia Hospital and the Health Centre in Nerja.

 

In May 2019 The president of AVISA was invited to speak at the University of Cadiz to the class of students taking their master's degree in translation and Interpretation. The aim was to give them some insight into the practicalities of our work in the Spanish Health Service. The talk was well received and provoked some lively discussion. The session ended with the sudents taking part in a variety of role play situations, where they got a feel for the work by playing the part of hospital interpreters. In this section the president was ably assisted by his wife, Sheila, who gave lively and amusing representations of English-speaking patients - much to the entertainment of those present.  We look forward to repeating the experience next year and wish all the students the best of luck with their future careers.

For the fourth year running, Pauline has organised a fund raising event for our benefit. This year she and her helpers have raised the staggering amount of 2635 euros for our association. The event, held in Nerja on January 12, was a total success - good food, brilliant entertainment and excellent company. Everyone clearly had a fantastic time. Many thanks to Pauline for her efforts on behalf of all the interpreters, as well as all the people who benefit from our voluntary service. Thanks also to all her helpers, the entertainers and all those who attended the event.

Tricia, Elizabeth and Anne Marie

 

 

 

Once again Anthony, who works both at the hospital and in Nerja, has compiled the statistics of the work we do during the year based on the daily record that we keep and they show an increase of nearly a thousand "jobs" accomplished in the hospital compared with the previous year. 

During 2018 we helped people on 11,327 occasions in the hospital (10,480 in 2017). Sometimes a "job" can consist of a short phone call to a patient, while on other occasions it may involve very much more time, where a patient or family member requires a lot of support in their dealings with hospital staff.

55% of our work was in English and 28% in German. The remainder is made up of other languages: French, Dutch, Italian, etc.

The volunteer interpreters also work in the health Centre in Nerja five days a week and there they carried out 2,153 "jobs" during the year. In Nerja the percentage of English used was 70%

https://player.talkradioeurope.com/ondemand/Talk_Radio_Europe_in_Spain_2018-07-01_10-00-00.mp3

 

On the link above you can hear the interview with the president of AVISA carried out by Howard Brereton on TALK RADIO EUROPE. 

The interviw starts at minute 24:00 and lasts 15 minutes and it gives an insight into the work of the interpreters. 

 

It is hard to come to terms with the fact that our much-loved colleague, Gianpietro Zampolli is no longer with us. He passed away on June 20 in the same hospital where he worked for 25 years as an interpreter of German and Italian. Gianpietro was a big man with a big heart: he carried out his duties efficiently, with empathy and always with good humour, smoothing the path of communication between patients, their families and the hospital staff. He was well known and liked by everyone who knew him - just about everyone in the hospital. He will be sadly and sorely missed by all, especially his fellow interpreters.

 

 

 

WATCH THE FILM HERE:: twitter.com/saludand/status/973943807665467394?s=09

 

 

 

El presidente de la asociación de voluntarios Avisa, Christopher Cluderay (d), ha explicado a Efe que realizan sus labores de traducción en el Área Sanitaria Este de Málaga-Axarquía "desde hace 20 años y con la asociación fundada desde hace 10, con un equipo de treinta intérpretes" para abarcar las lenguas de los extranjeros que requieren de sus servicios. EFE

 

 

WATCH HER VIDEO HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5GMNImHJYw

 

 

Joan (Juana) won first prize in the raffle.

 

 

Chris, Sheilah, Eufemia y Anthony at the AVISA stand

The wednesday team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunday April 17 2016 - Anthony, Tricia and Sheilah man the AVISA stand in Nerja where they inform people about our work at both the health centre in Nerja and the hospital.

 

Carmen Lundberg - a dedicated volunteer interpreter (1938 - 2013)

Carmen was born in 1938 in Mexico City. She studied with a scholarship at a college in USA and worked in the travel industry. In 1960 she met her future husband, Peter, while travelling on the ocean liner Queen Elizabeth. In December they got married and moved to Denmark, where she learned to speak Danish. As well as bringing up her son and two daughters, Carmen worked at the Mexican embassy in Copenhagen and later for IBM in the library and information department. She loved working with computers, finding information and being a part of the computer revolution at that time. She had a lot of energy and 3 times a week she gave evening classes in Spanish. As Peter was a pilot with SAS, they had the opportunity to travel widely, especially to her native Mexico. When they retired they decided to move to Nerja in Spain where they bought a big house so that the family could always come and visit. After only 2 years in Spain Peter died in 2005 but Carmen decided to stay in Spain and make a new start. She began working as a voluntary interpreter at the ambulatorio in Nerja and at the hospital in Vélez-Málaga, where she helped a lot of people and made a lot of friends! Unfortunately she became very ill in 2013 and passed away in June. She is greatly missed by her many friends in and out of the volunteers of AVISA. Many ex patients frequently ask after her and we have to pass on the sad news of her demise.

 

 

 

 

 

Signing of the agreement between Avisa and the district health authority:

Área de Gestión Sanitaria Este de Málaga – Axarquía

The agreement has finally been signed. It has involved work from a lot of people: the president, Chris; the former president, Antonio; Mª Teresa and Pura, social workers; Claudia, the head of customer service and several people from the legal department of the Junta de Andalucía. Essentially this is an agreement between AVISA and the district health authority of the Axarquía, which specifies what we do and how we do it, as well as the rights and responsibilities of the association of interpreters and the health authority. As the hospital director said on the day of the signing, "This formalises on paper what has been happening in practice for many years". In this way, the authority recognises officially the value that they place on the work done by all the interpreters in the hospital and in the health centre in Nerja.

In the photos are Sheilah Shearman, Claudia Caravaca, José Pinazo and Chris Cluderay at the signing of the agreement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Elizabeth, who has worked at the hospital on  Thursdays since the beginning of 2014, has become the "First Lady" of the municipality of Alcaucín; although she insists that she is still the same old person she has always been, working on her vegetable patch and riding around on her bicycle.

Elixabeth's husband, Mario Blanke, is now the Mayor of Alcaucín. After four years as the councillor responsible for town planning, Mario stood for mayor, in the elections of May 2015, under the banner of the new party Ciudadanos,  and is now in post in coalition with the PSOE party.

In the photo we see Elizabeth on the day of the investiture, standing proudly with her husband and two children.