Voices in the Chapter: language services for migrants

The third phase of our 'languages and migration' project will soon start and we need you!

Following a study commissioned by the City of Geneva and realized by ICVolunteers, we realized that in Geneva, only few resources are available to non-French speaking migrants, to accompany them in various daily tasks.

We interviewed a large number of migrants, as well as representatives from various communities. Some of them have expressed great integration difficulties, among other things, because of the slow and complicated French learning process. How to cope in Geneva without speaking French? Many migrants rely on relatives for helping them in various situations, such as education, health and administration. Too many children have to bear this heavy responsibility. In some sectors, such as education, the task is far too delicate. A child should not serve as an interpreter between his teacher and his parents.

This is why ICVolunteers-Switzerland, in the footsteps of our antenna in Barcelona, launches its "language and migration" project with a pilot project starting from the beginning of the new school year.

We want to make available to migrants an accompanying language service, by means of our volunteer network. It is important as a migrant to have an institution to contact in case of need. This service is therefore addressed in priority to migrants and aims to be complementary to services already offered by institutions.

The role of the volunteers will therefore be to facilitate the exchanges between schools and parents. The interpretation is one function, but we will also organize a weekly help desk manned by teachers and educational advisers where parents have the possibility to directly discuss their concerns or simply familiarize themselves with the school system in Geneva.

Our aim is to increase the mutual understanding between migrants and teachers, to create a respectful dialogue about intercultural issues, to facilitate the access to the institutions, to break isolation and thus promote the desire to learn French in order to achieve greater autonomy.

In collaboration with the "Bureau d'Intégration des Etrangers"; workshops for community interpreting will be provided to volunteers who want to participate in our project. The latter will be selected according to their profile and language combination. The aim of these workshops is to provide the foundations for intercultural communication as well as different community interpreting techniques and trialogue communication. As the role of the interpreter is not solely to translate word by word the content of a discussion, but rather to also adapt his or her speech according to the migrant's cultural codes. This is necessary to inform the latter about the way Geneva society operates.

If this project is of interest to you and/or if you have experience in community interpreting and/or are a native speaker of a language spoken by a migrant community, do not hesitate to contact us.

All languages will be useful, but some are particularly sought such as Spanish, Portuguese, Kurdish, Chinese, Thai and African languages.

If you are interested, please write to volunteer[at]icvolunteers.org or call us at    +41 22 800 14 36.