With an upcoming heat advisory sweeping Erie County and Western New York this week, many places have issued warnings about the heat and how to deal with it.
The International Institute of Buffalo has decided to release information about the heat in eleven different languages.
"In Buffalo, 10% of the people who live here are foreign-born," Gabe DiMaio, Director of Communications, said. "If you go to Erie County, about 7% of the people here are foreign-born, so it may not be automatically connecting on the concerns when the temperature gets sweltering or exceptionally hot and humid, so we just want to make sure that everybody's prepared.”
Several other organizations around the Buffalo area have released health statements advising about the heat and precautions that should be taken. The International Institute of Buffalo believes that everyone should have access to that information regardless of English-speaking capabilities.
DiMaio said that they are spreading the word and hoping it can get out to as many people as possible.
"It might be things that seem sort of common sense, but you never know," DiMaio said. "It's always important to have that information… and more importantly, what to do if you see somebody with those things. Besides calling 911, there are other things that you can do to help somebody who has heat stroke or heat exhaustion, and things that you could do around your home just to sort of adapt to the weather the way it is.”
The eleven different languages that the Institute are publishing information on are: Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Dari, English, Karen, Pashto, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Ukrainian.
All of this information can be found on their website: https://iibuffalo.org/news/summer-safety-info/
