The health protocol’s dessimination among the community is deemed inadequate. The number of people who are confirmed as positive for Covid-19 per day continues to increase. Public awareness in complying with the government guidelines is still low.
Language Office of the East Kalimantan Province assists the National Task Force for Covid-19 by translating the health protocol guidelines for changing behavior. The translation into the dominant regional languages, namely Banjar Samarinda and Kutai Languages. The choice of these two languages ??is due to the status of those languages ??which are understood by almost all residents in the provincial capital and district areas. The project has been carried out since October. The readability test on the health protocol script in local language was implemented by native speakers of both languages.
The readability test of the Banjar Samarinda language was run in one small meeting group by 15 people on November 9, 2020 at the Royal Park Hotel, Samarinda. The verifiers consist of the community, teachers, public and private employees, as well as indigeneous community assosiation representatives. On this occasion, the verifier reads, discusses, corrects, and agrees on the use of the language in the entire script that provided by the Office.
The Kutai language readability test was held on November 10, 2020 at the Grand Fatma Hotel, Tenggarong. The invited verifiers were 15 people. They work as teachers, lecturers, health workers, archivists, and representatives of the royal community. As a result, the script of behavior change guideline is ready to be disseminated to the public.
In addition, in order to have an impact and impression to the community, the messages of health protocol delivers in a videotaped version. The video recording is conducted by the Language Office staff with Duta Bahasa as the model.
The long process of translating the health protocol are ended with the first launch by the Head of the Language Development and Fostering Agency and the Representatives of The National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure on November 18, 2020.
Translated by Muhammad Erwin Darma