A series of bilingual candidate forums with those running for Holyoke City Council and School Committee will be held this week at Holyoke Media.
Nayroby Rosa is the director of community engagement and resident services, for OneHolyoke CDC, the organization putting on the forums.
She said the events are meant to inform and maybe even inspire voters.
"We want to be able to empower our residents to get to know who their candidates are and then hopefully in the future, have enough interest that residents also want to become leaders themselves," she said.
The city has a more than 50% Latino population, according to the most recent census data and this is not the first time the organization hosts a bilingual forum. These date back to current Mayor Joshua Garcia's first election, Rosa said.
"We had a really good turnout, and it was definitely a bilingual space, focusing on making sure that we were able to capture their comments in both languages to give voters a sense of who these candidates were," she said. "We thought it was important and valuable to be able to do that."
The organization has attempted various methods of translation services for voters. This time there will be translation in real time through headsets that voters can request upon entering Holyoke Media.
Rosa also pointed out that while candidates can have signs outside the building, no one will be allowed to bring in any election materials to the forum.
"We want to respect each of the candidates and treat them equally when they come through the doors and the same for voters," she said.
Candidates will answer a set of pre-selected questions as well as a surprise question.
The forums will be scattered throughout the week and will be filmed and available in English and in Spanish.
The first forum is tonight beginning at 5:30 p.m. and will give candidates for all of the city council ward seats a chance to meet with voters.
