As part of its chartered mission to protect the civil rights of all members of the Providence community, and ensure equitable access to city services, the Providence Human Relations Commission (PHRC) has worked diligently to build language capacity across the City of Providence.
Throughout the last year, the PHRC has surveyed departments’ needs and assets, purchased simultaneous interpretation equipment for city-wide use, and established a partnership with AMOR’s language justice team, to train multilingual staff and department directors in the principles of language justice and the basics of community interpretation. The Commission is now thrilled to publish a Language Access Toolkit, to be updated routinely, detailing resources for departments to build internal capacity with respect to language access. The Commission looks forward to issuing a request for proposals through the Department of Public Properties for a blanket contract for interpretation and translation services in the coming weeks, continuing to build on this work.
Language Access Toolkit
The PHRC is grateful for the partnership of Mayor Elorza and Council President Sabina Matos, AMOR RI, member agencies of the RI Department of Human Services’ Refugee Support Network, and the City of Seattle’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, in expanding language access in Providence city-wide.