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Follow on Google News | Could NSW have something to teach cities round the world in supporting multicultural health?By: PretaWeb Pty Ltd Excellent examples of this challenge, and in the case of New South Wales (NSW) how it can be met, can be found in NSW Australia and London. According to the Multicultural Health Communication Service of NSW website and the NSW Health Plan for 2012 – 2016 there are residents from approximately 140 different countries (31% of the population), speaking over 150 different languages. One in five businesses are owned by people born overseas. The importance of addressing this challenge was underlined when Health Minister Jillian Skinner recognised the work of the NSW Multicultural Health Communication Service (MHCS) “Individuals and communities in NSW from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds will have quality information/ As part of this ongoing commitment on July 3rd MHCS launched its new website. This site provides 5,260 public health information resources covering fact sheets, video and audio in 61 different community languages. With a huge amount of information available across a wide variety of critical health issues including blood pressure, cancer, eating disorders, dental care and mental health, it is an important resource. Developed by PretaGov using the open-source Plone CMS the system allows a sophisticated search across not just major languages such as Spanish, French and Mandarin but also in less common community languages including Tongan, Dinka and Assyrian. Providing multi-lingual facilities of this type is an important demonstration of support for multiculturalism – but it is not a selfless approach. Helping such an important proportion of any community can only stimulate the environment for everybody. Perhaps there are also lessons to be learned abroad. Major urban centres in the UK (where PretaGov have also recently established a presence) and London in particular have some strikingly similar issues. In the 2011 census it was revealed that 100 different languages were spoken in every London borough. Overall 53 main languages were identified with another 54 variants. 107 languages were defined in the census. However, when variants and minor languages were considered it was shown that over 250 languages are spoken in London. Clearly, Local Government Authorities (LGA’s) However, whilst there is a commitment to support communities there is no clear policy, for example, on translation which is left to the Local Government Authority concerned. In a time of clearly ‘stretched’ resources anything that facilitates improved communication and health with a similarly valued and diverse community to that of NSW can only benefit that community. Previous technologies and website installations have struggled to provide cost-effective and meaningful translation across a wide range of languages. The PretaGov Plone CMS could address this as it has a standard language definition that supports a variety of both common language and more exceptional ones – including the top ten languages (after English) spoken in the UK of Polish, Panjabi, Urdu, Bengali, Gujarati, Arabic, French, Chinese (excluding Mandarin and Cantonese), Portuguese and Spanish. It is rare to see an opportunity to both improve service and decrease cost. We anticipate that we will see a rapid spread of this type of product using open-source, open-standard software applications to bring the benefits of technology to both the community through improved service and communication and LGA’s through delivery improvements and cost-savings. For further information please contact Australia: Virginia Choy Email: vi (mailto:viginia.choy@ Tel: 02 8081 9072 Website: www.pretagov.com.au Footnote. MHCS was established by NSW Ministry of Health to co-ordinate state-wide communication strategies with communities who speak a language other than English. A key objective of the service is to develop and establish standards of best practice in communication with these communities. References: ONS 2011 Census key statistics: http://www.ons.gov.uk/ Community Relations Commission for NSW: http://www.crc.nsw.gov.au/ Multicultural Community Health Service: http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/ Publications & Resources: http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/ Jillian skinner Recognises Work of MHCS http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/ NSW Policy and Implementation Plan for healthy and culturally diverse communities 2012-2016: http://www.mhcs.health.nsw.gov.au/ About PretaGov Established in 2004, PretaGov has worked with more than 35 Government clients in areas including Health, Transport, Emergency Services, Education, Family and Community Services, and Legal Services. PretaGov is proud to offer a service that assists all sectors of our society in their community language and would be delighted to offer a demonstration of their solution. PretaGov has offices in the UK and Australia, staff in 5 countries, and takes advantage of the global Plone community with its thousands of active developers and over 330 companies in 31 countries. Visit: http://www.pretagov.com.au End
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