Care and support

Advice and information in community languages

The London Advice Services Alliance (LASA) website offering advice and information in 10 community languages has now gone live.

The internet may have transformed access to information for millions of people, yet millions more remain excluded because they don't speak the right language. Lasa's Multikulti website is an attempt to close that gap, creating one site that provides good, regularly updated advice on matters important to the main non-English speaking communities in the UK.

The website contains translations of leaflets in 10 community languages covering 6 key areas:

1. immigrations and asylum
2. welfare benefits
3. employment
4. housing
5. health
6. debt

These have been translated into the following languages: Albanian, Bengali, Chinese, Farsi, French, Gujerati, Somali, Spanish and Turkish.

"The internet has gone through several phases, but all the way through it has been an English-based medium. Accessibility and diversity are now becoming key themes, not just to sell but to deliver services. Some groups have tried to simplify their script to make it fit with the technology but we want to make the technology work with people's cultures rather than the culture with the technology.

The Multikulti project has been funded with the support of a £335,000 grant from the New Opportunities Fund, a National Lottery good cause distributor.

For more information look on the website at www.multikulti.org.uk or phone 0207 247 7226