These documents can help determine if your meeting location is handicapped accessible:
Accessible to Handicapped and Handicapped Accessible With Facilities Check List
Informational Guide To Help Define Accessibility To AA Meeting Spaces

Special Needs/Languages/Remote Communities Committee

Who We Are .... Is What We Do!

It is the purpose of this committee to carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers, including many members who have special needs. We define AA’s with special needs as persons who are blind or visually challenged deaf or hearing at low levels, chronically ill or homebound. We assist with Translation Services, specifically in Area 11, and throughout the US and the Canadian General Service Conference Areas. We address those who belong to Remote Communities, where it is difficult to carry the AA message because of language, culture, geography or life condition.

In our short history as a committee, dedicated to serving special needs, we have evolved quite a bit. We are constantly defining ourselves by what we do .... reaching back to take hold of anyone, anywhere, who is reaching out for help. We want the hand of AA to always be there. And for that, we are responsible. These are the ways that we carry the message today: 

1. We provide translation equipment, which consists of three transmitters and approximately fifty headset-receivers, servicing simultaneous French, Spanish, potentially any language translations, depending upon translator ability. Also amplification of language of the speaker, usually English, for the hearing impaired. We also facilitate simultaneous translations in American Sign Language (ASL).

2. We provide books and pamphlets in other languages. The Big Book has, as of 2008, been translated into 39 languages and availability is at the Area office. The ‘12 and 12' is also available. Most all literature is produced by AA World Services.

3. We service Homeless Shelters by delivering past issues of the Grapevine and La Vi_na on a periodic basis to shelters in Connecticut. Distribution is by district. Our hope is to get the message in print out there to those who may want it someday. Our hope is their hope.

4. We gather information via two flyer hand-outs: (a) do any of our AA members speak a language other than English and would they be willing to share that ability with an alcoholic in need; (b) do any of our AA meetings address a particular need that we are not aware of. As a result, we have had the response of twenty-plus Area 11 sober members who speak other languages and are willing to be contacts for those in need. We can always add more people, since a list of twenty-plus people is what we now have to serve all of Connecticut. So, we have added links to these two flyers, which immediately follow this letter on the Special Needs web page.

5. We gather information to determine whether meetings designated as Accessible To Handicapped and Handicapped Accessible With Facilities are actually equipped as indicated to merit those designations. This project is being addressed district by district, meeting-place by meeting-place. We want to ensure access to everyone.

6. We service a number of Area-sponsored events during the year that require the translation equipment, translators, etc. Some of these events are: Area Assemblies: Pre-Conference, Spring and Fall, the Roundup, Conventions: both AA and Al-Anon, and the CT State Conference of Young People in AA. In addition to CT Area 11, we service NERAASA and other delegate areas, such as MA, ME and RI, upon request.

7. We service District-sponsored events that are considered major events. These would include ‘Rompiendo Fronteras’, held annually in District 4, and ‘A Day of Sharing’, held annually in District 9.

In the eight years of our short existence, the Special Needs Committee continues to define itself by what it does. We invite all who need our help to reach out for us so we can reach back and, together, make every need a truly special one.

Respectfully submitted by the Area 11 Special Needs/Languages/Remote Communities Committee