SIS continues to work to meet increasing interpreting need in Sussex by enrolling new Community Interpreters into our existing pool. On the 18th May 2023 we held what we hope will be the first of many enrolment events in Worthing at the Heene Community Centre.
The aim of the event was to connect with people from communities within West Sussex and give information about Community Interpreting and enrolling with SIS.
We promoted the meeting digitally through community contacts and partners as well as SIS staff going into the community to meet with local service providers, businesses, places of worship and community services to distribute promotional materials.
On the day, as we gathered for an informal briefing, a member of the Tamil community asked to speak and gave sincere thanks to SIS but specifically to Community Interpreters explaining how they have helped people they know and just how important they are in supporting service users in feeling heard and accessing services “You are appreciated!”. This was really warming to hear and was followed by applause from the group.
During the briefing Shahreen one of our SIS Directors spoke to the value of Community Interpreting, why SIS’s approach is different as a charity operating in language services and how this approach has supported service users across Sussex for over 28 years; focussing on stories and service user feedback. Read SIS service user stories here.
We were also joined by Audrius and Tella Community Interpreters who have a combined 31 years enrolled with SIS! They were able to share their insight with attendees around their experience, what they find rewarding and what can be challenging.
A common theme amongst attendees as they shared the different ways they already support their communities voluntarily or through paid roles was just how motivated they were in doing this and looking to find new ways to expand their skills and knowledge. In attendance were members from the Worthing Islamic and Crawley Tamil communities whom expressed the intention to take back what they learned and promote Community Interpreting with SIS to their networks.
Languages represented at the event included Arabic, Farsi, Tamil, Russian, Ukrainian and Urdu and we were able to establish connections and collect expressions of interest.
We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came, to the SIS community interpreters, those that helped organise the event and our voluntary sector colleagues for promoting it. We’re keen to build on this success with our next event planned to take place in Eastbourne and we will share more detail on this in due course on our website and social media.
If you or someone you know would like to find out more about enrolling with SIS as a Community Interpreter get in touch.
