Jila (kai-luh) aims to reduce language barriers for local Q’anjob’al-speaking immigrants by providing resources for skills crucial for daily life. Q’anjob’al is an indigenous and endangered language that is not similar to Spanish or English; therefore, there are minimal resources and support for immigrants who live in the Champaign-Urbana area, and if they are, they are difficult to access. We aim to target this mission using a mobile application that can be easily accessible by everyone. On this app, we plan to have short, educational videos translated into Q’anjob’al for various domains, such as transportation, medicine, legal, and professional development.

We plan to first focus on the area of transportation and have videos for topics like how to ride the bus, how to use rideshare apps and navigate around the area. Although J¡la will require strong technical work, non-technical and technical PAs will be equally foundational to our project as the majority of our app is centered around content through partnerships, community outreach, and content creation. Everyone is welcome!