Q&A
Addressing language access needs for Haitian Creole speakers
1:35:23
·
135 sec
Council Member Avilés inquires about the administration's efforts to meet the language access needs of Haitian Creole speakers, particularly in healthcare settings. Kenneth Lo from MOIA explains the current initiatives and challenges.
- Haitian Creole is one of the Local Law 30 languages
- MOIA has worked on a Haitian initiative in collaboration with community organizations to provide information for new arrivals or TPS recipients
- There are challenges in expanding interpretation capacity, which is a common issue across languages
- MOIA works with agencies to guide them on translating materials and using available vendors
- Long-term efforts focus on expanding the number of linguists, but this is a gradual process
Alexa Avilés
1:35:23
Yeah.
1:35:24
Can I can I ask in terms of in this context of, like, responding to to specific challenges that you're seeing as as you're well aware of?
1:35:36
Right?
1:35:36
Recent reporting has shown that speakers of Haitian Creole have struggled to receive in language documents, particularly in healthcare settings.
1:35:46
Haitian Creole is obviously one of the 10 city wide languages.
1:35:51
Can you walk me through what the administration is doing to meet the language access needs for those who speak Haitian Creole.
1:35:59
Like, just, like, concretely, what has been done of recent to meet that growing need?
Kenneth Lo
1:36:10
Haitian Creole, as you know, is is one of the local authority languages.
1:36:17
There has been efforts for a Haitian initiative.
1:36:24
Where Moia worked in collaboration with community organizations to provide more information critical for new arrivals or TPS in language In terms of capacity, this is a common challenge across languages, especially in terms of interpretation, in terms of other languages, new arrivals, there is a limited set of resources in the city.
1:37:04
We work with agencies to guide them on, you know, translating materials.
1:37:09
Of course, they're working with their vendors.
1:37:16
There are opportunities to to expand the number of linguists, and that's kind of like a a longer term process.
1:37:25
But other than building out that teams is more like making sure that the the materials that need to be in language are going through the appropriate available vendors.
