World Speaks

Looking for a fun way to show your support?

Head over to our store and grab a shirt or sweatshirt to represent World Speaks!

We’ll be at World Refugee Day! Stop by our table and say hello!

This year’s event will include health screenings and resources, school sports physicals, community connections, and referrals from local organizations. You can also enjoy an international food fair, cultural performances, a scholarship ceremony, presentations, and activities for families.

We hope to see you there!

Spots are still available for our Interpreters Course

In this course, you’ll learn the fundamentals of interpretation, including interpreter roles, ethics, and key techniques while gaining hands on practice. You’ll also explore language access and language justice and the important role interpreters play in promoting equity and understanding.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a strong foundation to begin a career in interpreting

Don’t miss your chance to get started.

Sign up today!

We are incredibly grateful to our partners, volunteers, and everyone who supported us during **Language Access Week**. This work would not be possible without you.

Swipe to read our full thank you message and to see what we’re excited about as we continue advancing language access in our community.

If you would like to support us, please donate at www.worldspeaksomaha.org/donate/

Today, we are highlighting HCAN!

Read why language access matters to them:

At HCAN we are continuously working to improve patient communication and understanding in healthcare settings. We work with all the Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) to ensure patients fully understand their care, ask questions, and make informed decisions.

Last year, HCAN partnered with World Speaks to create a video that teaches clinicians how to work with medical interpreters. Their team was professional, collaborative, and very knowledgeable. They took the time to understand our goals and provide a high-quality video. It has been a pleasure partnering with them, and I would highly recommend them to any organization.

HCAN created a link with a quiz at the end is set up so that our FQHC clinics can assign this video to staff, have them complete the quiz to confirm they watched the video, and then receive a completion certificate.

It is now our practice that the video be assigned to new FQHC staff as an onboarding requirement or as an assigned competency. That way clinic teams can be confident that their staff have received some training and preparation on how to best care for patients that require an interpreter.

Through our generous sponsors, we have a $2,000 match of donations made during Language Access Week! Help us turn $2,000 into $4,000!

Support our work: www.worldspeaksomaha.org/donate/

Our Moroccan empanadas class is happening today!

We’re excited to bring everyone together for a fun, hands-on experience and can’t wait for our students to enjoy learning, cooking, and connecting.

Today, we are highlighting CIRA!

CIRA provides compassionate refugee services, expert legal representation, and comprehensive social work to immigrants and refugees residing or arriving in Nebraska and Southwest Iowa. We envision immigrants and refugees thriving in communities across the state. CIRA’s diverse and experienced team assists with all forms of family and humanitarian-based services to ensure immigrants and refugees are welcomed, settled, and able to build a life of their choosing.

We are committed to making our services accessible across languages so every community member can fully participate, understand their options, and feel supported throughout their journey with us. Language access is essential to meaningful access. It ensures people can understand their rights, make informed decisions, and navigate complex systems with dignity and confidence.

Our Nebraska Immigration Legal Assistance Hotline (NILAH) uses Language Line services to communicate with callers in more than 240 languages, helping connect people to immigration legal support regardless of the language they speak.

Our social work team provides therapy and case management in both English and Spanish, and our statewide staff collectively speak 29 languages, making language access a shared, organization-wide effort. Across programs, we help clients navigate systems like schools and healthcare, in culturally and linguistically responsive ways.

CIRA also expands access through community education by offering multilingual Know Your Rights materials and trainings, helping community members access critical information before they ever need direct services.

In the last two years, CIRA has directly provided English as a Second Language (ESL) education to about 30 people and referred hundreds more to trusted language-learning partners. Our refugee services team also provides practical language support through educational classes, helping newly arrived families build confidence in navigating daily life, from transportation to employment.

We served over 18,000 individuals in our community!

We have also:
• 577+ hours of interpreting
• 74+ translation projects
• 10 community courses
• 16 community events

Thank you for being part of the work that makes language access possible.

Today, we are highlighting Restoring Dignity!

Read why Lanaguage Access matters to them:

The restoring dignity team has demonstrated what being a better neighbor when including language access time and time again. They founded the Emergency Language Alert Network that engages community leaders to send out information about emergencies in the languages needed by immigrant and refugee populations. Their team also did major community education in multiple languages during the covid pandemic and continues to inform the community about ongoing major system changes.

Paw Bway had a little bit to say about World Speaks partnering with them for their housing study results publishing. “We are very thankful for World Speaks for translating Omaha’s Refugee Housing Study through the Open Doors program. Because of the translation support, we are able to share the study with families who do not speak English. This partnership allowed us to reach communities we previously had limited access to and ensures families have meaningful language access.”