New TWR Website Speaks Spanish

At first glance, www.transmundial.org looks a lot like TWR’s established presence on the Internet, but the content is in Spanish and the blue logo in the top left corner reads “RTM.”

TWR has rolled out its Web hub for Hispanic outreach in the Americas. RTM, which stands for the Spanish translation of TWR used by most of the organization’s Latin American partners, is now online and active.

The site has been designed so that it can double as a template for other TWR ministry partners to easily adapt to their own purposes.

“Theoretically, it’s the web page for the U.S. Hispanic ministry, but I’ve intentionally broadened it out to be a contact point for all the Hispanic ministry,” said Jim Munger, director of U.S. Hispanic ministry at the TWR Americas office in Cary, N.C. “The various national offices have their own sites, but several of them have shown great interest in [the template].”

Links on the RTM site provide quick access to the many national partners throughout Latin America – from Mexico southward to Chile – and include Portuguese-speaking Brazil and Spain’s Radio Encuentro. One of those partners, RTM-Uruguay, produces the content for the popular devotional series “Armonia para el Alma (Harmony of the Soul),” which cycles daily across the bottom of the site’s main page.

As the site is developed, news and feature items will be added to the devotional strip and large display graphic on the main page.

Along with an “Acerca de nosotros (About us)” section providing information about the history, values, staff and contact methods of the TWR Hispanic Ministry, features on the site include the following:

• “Cómo participar (How to participate)” – Information about job and volunteer opportunities, to be added later, and about how to make donations to the ministry is available. An online function allows donors to give through a PayPal account.

• “Comunidad (Community)" – Blogs, discussion forums and photo galleries are planned, and newsletters of the widely broadcast Thru the Bible radio program are archived.

• “Productos (Products)” – Christian literature and audio products can be purchased online. 

• “Escuchar aquí (Listen here)” – Various programs can be downloaded or listened to live. Among the downloadable programs are Thru the Bible, Project Hannah’s Women of Hope and Tesoros para Niños (Treasures for Children).

“I think it’s a crucial development for us to have this portal that brings people to the ministry,” Munger said. “We have a strong brand in Latin America, and a lot of Hispanics that come to the United States recognize that brand. They say, ‘Oh, I listened to the programs when I was growing up. My grandmother used to turn it on’ or ‘my parents used to do it. And now I’m here, and I’m so glad to find it.’”

(Source : TWR)