Limerick city company trains up 37 ‘community translators’

A LIMERICK translation company’s training division is helping Ukrainian refugees to integrate better into Irish society.

Based at Upper Mallow Street in the city, Translit is a language services provider that has donated its time and efforts to help refugees displaced due to the Russian invasion of their home country.

Its own chief executive Alex Chernenko is himself from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, and as soon as it became clear that Ireland would welcome thousands of refugees, he believed that Translit could offer its community interpreting training programme to various local organisations throughout Ireland who work with Ukrainians.

As a result of this, the initiative has seen 37 new community interpreters trained in the Mid-West.

Translit’s training development manager Svetlana O'Farrell, collaborated with the Clare local development company to provide the training, and this was financed by the Social Inclusion and Community Activation Programme.

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“We are pleased to have an opportunity to work with the local authorities and start providing our services to a bigger cohort of refugees fleeing this terrible war,” said Mr Chernenko. “It’s great to see so many volunteers devoting their time to provide language assistance to people in need. But volunteers need support themselves, training in particular. Effective communication between local public services and Ukrainian refugees is very important if we want to ensure that we look after our guests well.”

Alex said the feedback received from Ukrainian refugees has so far been very positive.

“Our mission was always to help people communicate and promote understanding. Aligning ourselves with local organisations in Ireland is another huge step in the right direction. There is so much to be done and we are trying our best to help out. Hopefully more local authorities can come onboard so we can access even more refugees and upskill them to become community interpreters,” he added.