Virtual Villages

[Lakia Throssell]

Oneweek Virtual Village summer sessions offer language and cultural immersion for villagers ages 8-18 throughout the summer. Villagers can take one week or multiple in the same language or across languages. Sessions provide at least two and a half hours of virtual, interactive immersion in the target language each day, Monday-Friday.

All language levels are welcome. Where possible, villagers will be grouped by similar proficiency level and age. Staff to villager ratio of 1:6, on average. Schedules are determined by each Virtual Village Club.

Virtual Village Classes offer a real-time interactive small group setting for language and cultural learning. These hands-on experiences follow a roadmap for six weeks in the fall or spring and take villagers on a journey to increased language proficiency. Asynchronous activities for villagers to complete at home will be provided to extend learning.

All language levels are welcome. Villager age ranges vary by each Virtual Village Class. Sessions meet twice per week for either 30 minutes (grade school) or 60 minutes (middle and high school) over Zoom; schedules are determined by each Virtual Village Class.

Virtual high school credit programs are offered each fall and spring in select languages. Available languages vary by session. Like our overnight camps, these 24-week programs provide 180 hours of instruction, meeting twice weekly for 2.5 hours (typically 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m Central).

Expand your experience with the culture and language of your choice by joining a Virtual Workshop designed to teach new skills and enhance knowledge of global communities. Workshops can range from single-session activities to multi-session series focused on learning a new art or skill. When you join one of our new Virtual Workshops, you'll come away with practical knowledge that goes beyond language learning.

In order to best take advantage of this interactive experience, you will need a reliable internet connection and a computer with access to a microphone, speakers and webcam; headphones are recommended but not required. Use of Chromebooks are not recommended as you cannot access all the features of the Virtual Village platform. High school credit villagers will access Google Classroom to submit assignments. As a program of Concordia College, we are coordinating our efforts with the college so that all virtual platforms will have the necessary and appropriate security features to protect the privacy of users, including compliance with FERPA and COPPA.

Just like in the residential programs at the Language Villages, the Virtual Village experience aims to be as immersive as possible. Instruction will be in the language you are learning. We will share some helpful strategies for learning in a virtual immersion environment at the beginning of the session. In the event that there are significant technical or other unforeseen issues, English may be used sparingly to get us back on track.

You can sign up for these sessions one week at a time. Sessions will focus on basic patterns of language appropriate for different proficiency levels and will draw on real-life, culturally authentic situations (walking in the woods, creating arts and crafts, etc.).

One-week sessions will provide approximately two hours per day of virtual instruction and one hour per day of offline activity for five days, Monday-Friday, between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Central. The Village staff will provide you with a detailed schedule of meeting times at the beginning of the session, but please make sure that you are available for synchronous programming between these hours. The exact timing of the two hours is not set; we will make every effort to accommodate requests for specific timings from those in different time zones.

Your virtual session counselors will be a mix of classroom teachers, native speakers and college students or recent graduates with significant experience abroad. Many counselors were also villagers for many years.

Adult Class programs are focused on developing your language skills through formal instruction, held for one hour twice per week. Adult Conversation programs are focused on developing your language skills through informal conversational practice, held for one hour one day each week. Schedules are determined by the program leader, and participants are placed in groups based on proficiency.

Not at all! Parents/guardians do not need to have any previous experience with language learning and are not expected to provide language support at home. They do, however, need to provide encouragement and a good environment for learning, ensure regular attendance and purchase any necessary supplies prior to the first meeting day. A supply list will be provided in advance. Additionally, parents/guardians will need to sign a consent form for participation in the program and agree together to an appropriate code of conduct that we will have in place.

For most of us, Plan A for long-term housing is pretty simple: live at home, independently, for as long as possible. Plan B gets more complicated. What will happen when we need assistance getting groceries, maintaining the house, going to the doctor, and staying socially connected? The answer for some people is a grassroots trend called a "virtual village."

A virtual village isn't a place. It's a group of people who live in their own homes, near each other, and agree to help each other. They form a self-governing nonprofit organization that offers membership to any household within its coverage area, which could include one or many neighborhoods.

Because a village is run by volunteers (although there might be one or two paid staffers), membership may be free or as much as $1,200 per year. There may be fees for some services, too, such as repairs.

"The village won't replace an assisted living facility or nursing home, if that's what you need, but it may help delay the transition," says Dr. Susanne Hartmann, a geriatrician with Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. "Many of my patients move into assisted living because transportation becomes a big issue. Or they might need a private aide because they're no longer safe by themselves. If a village can solve transportation issues, or help them find an aide, they may no longer have to leave home."

If you're interested in finding a village in your area, you can check out the Village to Village website (www.vtvnetwork.org). It has a map of villages throughout the United States and information about how to contact them.

You might also get village information at your local senior center or regional Area Agency on Aging, part of a network of more than 600 agencies that receive federal funding to coordinate older adult support services and provide referrals to them. To find yours, go to /ecl.

Virtual villages, including online support groups, can help reduce isolation and promote better health in vulnerable populations, such as people living with HIV, aged 50 years and older (PLWH 50+). A study led by Brandon Brown in the UC Riverside School of Medicine developed and pilot-tested a virtual village intervention tailored for PLWH 50+ and found it enhanced social engagement and improved aspects of mental wellbeing in this population.

According to Brown, virtual villages have gradually gained popularity, especially during the past decade with increased accessibility to the internet through mobile and other devices. They can be a possible intervention for supporting PLWH 50+ during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, he said.

The senior population in the United Sates is growing. By 2034 older adults are expected to out number people under the age of 18 for the first time in American history. As the older population grows, not all will have access to formal systems of care, and an increasing number of older adults are seeking ways to stay connected to their community and to get support in navigating the transitions of getting older without losing their independence.

The village concept is one way that seniors and their neighbors and communities collaborate to support older adults to remain in their communities of choice. Several neighborhood centered villages have existed around King County for several years. In 2020, through the VSHSL strategy Senior Virtual Villages, King County sought to expand access to this community-based approach by funding programs that reflect the diversity of older adults in King County. The Senior Virtual Village strategy offers one of few examples of formal funding across the nation for this community-led model of aging-in-place.

In 2020, eight organizations were funded by the VSHSL to create or enhance a Virtual Village, funded organizations include: Eritrean Association of Greater Seattle, Filipino Community of Seattle, Iraqi Community Center of WA, Khmer Community of Seattle, Northwest Neighbors Network, Somali Family Safety Task Force, Ukrainian Community Center of Washington and Vashon-Maury Senior Center. Below we are featuring three of the VSHSL-funded Virtual Villages.

One organization funded by VSHSL, the Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle, a cultural group serving seniors of Eritrean origin, was well-positioned at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to build its Village by deploying existing services deeper into the Eritrean community to reach isolated Eritrean and Ethiopian elders. The association delivered healthy, culturally appropriate meals three days a week; helped elders make important connections with their native culture, including opportunities for them to connect online with others who speak their language and share common traditions and foods; shared information about resources, services and assistance programs available in the community and lead age-appropriate exercise programs to increase fitness. By adapting their Virtual Village programs during the pandemic the association increased the number of elders and the number of disabled and/or homebound elders connected to the village. For example, to facilitate food delivery to elders, the Eritrean Association in Greater Seattle recruited volunteers to help package food and paid Eritrean Tigrigna-speaking Uber drivers to make the deliveries in their community.

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