The Best Part...

CRIT USA is now open.
As our dear readers may know, we love our jobs and pretty much everything about our profession. However, there are always aspects of our business that are more fun (or less fun; such as paperwork) than others. Without doubt, one of our favorite parts of the job is visiting and spending time with our incredible customers in person. We have met many of them, while others we just know via e-mail and phone. It's usually a fantastic experience to finally meet clients in person, and we've traveled quite extensively to do so. Sometimes we combine a vacation trip with a visit to a client's headquarters, but this week, it was all business as Judy headed to San Antonio for the grand opening of the Children's Rehabilitation Institute of Teletón (Teletón is a Mexican non-profit organization that operates children's rehabilitation centers). The opening marked the first CRIT center in the United States (there are more than 20 in Mexico).

We were delighted that Judy had been invited to the grand opening, which took place on October 30 at the brand-new building. The more than 1,000 guests were treated to entertainment by impressive musicians, including Aleks Syntek and Aida Cuevas. Both Univision and Televisa are major partners of Teletón and CRIT, so many well-known anchors, television executives and media moguls were in attendance, including Emilio Azcárraga, the president of Televisa. Actess and activist Eva Longoria, whose brother has special needs, also spoke at the opening ceremony. During the event, two additional pledges of $1 million were announced.

CRIT USA is a first of its kind in the sense that it offers rehabilitation treatment (on an outpatient basis) to 600 children and their families a year, independntly of their ability to pay for these services. The outpatient facility is truly impressive, with many high-tech robotics to give underprivileged children with neuromusculoskeletal access to the rehabilitation treatment they need -- and no expense was spared when it comes to equipment and services. It might be quite unprecendented here in the US: the center offers treatment until certain pre-established goals are met -- and not treatment until the insurance company doesn't approve treatment anymore. The top-notch medical staff is complemented by a variety of comprehensive care services, including a multisensory room, a life skills room, and a custom-built pool for hydroptherapy. The entire center is decorated in bright and cheerful colors and doesn't look like a medical facility at all.

Our business, Twin Translations, helped CRIT USA and Teletón with the translation of many patient materials, internal documents, PowerPoint presentations, subtitling of movies, and much more (Spanish into English). We also worked on a portion of the website and hope to continue doing so. Meeting CRIT USA's CEO, Ricardo Guzman Hefferán, was a pleasure. It's great to put the name with a face and to be part of this incredible effort to establish the first CRIT in the US (in dollars, it was $17 million to build it).  The festivities ended with confetti, projected fireworks and mariachi music, to be followed by a tour of the brand-new facilities.

What about you, dear colleagues? Have you enjoyed meeting some of your customers in person?


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The entrepreneurial linguists and translating twins blog about the business of translation from Las Vegas and Vienna.

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