Kendré Barnes

Former Professional Volunteer

I had the pleasure of co-translating the Lionheart Foundation’s POWER SOURCE: Taking Charge of Your Life worksheet manual from English into Spanish. Working with Cecilia Ramirez, I translated/proofread half of the manual that will ultimately accompany Adriana Miniño’s Spanish translation of the POWER SOURCE book. I read about Lionheart’s translation project on the volunteer-matching platform catchafire.org. I am grateful not only to Catchafire, but to Jess Linick and Amanda Casarjian, for allowing me to support Lionheart’s healing and life-altering work. Thank you as well to Cecilia for being a great translation and proofreading partner. During this project, I learned about the power behind POWER SOURCE and Lionheart’s mission. First, Lionheart empathically provides at-risk teens/ incarcerated members of the community with tools to heal by confronting trauma with love and accountability. I focused on that empathy while translating by reminding myself that, for many people, the pages between the covers of the POWER SOURCE Spanish-language resources might be their only safe space all day. That increased the urgency of my work as a translator, and I tried to render everything accurately and effectively so that language would not hinder learning. Second, and most importantly, I saw how Lionheart’s programming can help everyone. POWER SOURCE teaches us all how to practically bring about internal and external change in self/interpersonal-affirming, responsible, and accountability-driven ways. That struck a chord with me and I worked to translate from a place of practical understanding. Lionheart, thank you for the opportunity to volunteer for this translation project! Thank you as well to the interns and staff (especially Gisella Casillas) who took the time to read my translations and ensure that they resonated authentically with the intended audiences. And thank you all for what you do.