RUSSIAN INTERPRETERS
Our Team:
We are the Volunteer Health Interpreters Organization of UC Berkeley. Each fall, we recruit and train bilingual students to provide free interpretation and translation services to limited-English proficiency populations in the Bay Area. Our students have interpreted at medication consultations, cancer specialist panels, free surgery sessions, dental screenings, and more. Currently, we actively provide language support in Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Tagalog, Korean, and Japanese.
This semester, we are looking for a couple of passionate, Russian-speaking students to pilot Russian services.
Please note:
We are not taking applications for our other languages this semester. You may go to calvhio.org/join and leave your email if you are interested in applying in Fall 2018.
We also have not noted the need for language services other than the seven we currently offer and Russian. If you are interested in piloting a different language, it will be up to you to collect the data to show our director board that there is a demand in the community for health interpretation in your language.
Responsibilities:
- Reach out to new organizations or health care providers that request Russian language services, and help with current requests for Russian translation
- Translate current interpreter training material into Russian
- Attend accelerated lectures from our education department to develop knowledge of interpretation protocols, confidentiality laws, and medical terminology
- Regularly meet with VHIO directors to assess progress
- Lead fall recruitment of Russian-speakers in the fall (if there is enough demand to expand)
Qualifications:
We are looking for students who are
- Passionate about language access in health care
- Fluent in Russian: we require fluency in our volunteers, and will need you to find a Russian-language instructor to attest to your fluency.
- Willing to take the initiative: like all of our department coordinators, you will need to be proactive in emailing health care providers and organizations to find vulnerable populations that are in need of your language's services.
Interested candidates:
Please email contact@calvhio.org with "Russian Interpreter" as your subject title. In your email, please tell us about your background in Russian and why you are interested in language access in health care. Please also note whether you are interested in taking on a larger leadership role.
Please also let us know whether you would be free on Tuesday, February 20 from 12:30 - 2:30 to visit one of our partner sites with a demand for Russian interpretation.