Implementing Social Purpose at MCIS Language Solutions: Upholding the Human Right to be Informed, Heard, and Understood

Language is a fundamental human right, enabling communication and self-expression. However, it has become also a contentious issue in today's polarized world. In Canada, linguistic diversity is celebrated but not always protected. This has made language advocacy crucial, especially for organizations and businesses providing language services that now also could play a vital role in upholding people's right to be informed, heard, and understood. This becomes particularly important in multicultural and multilingual cities, where communities such as immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers could be marginalized due to language barriers.

Defining Social Purpose in the Context of Promoting Language Services and Language Rights

MCIS Language Solutions ' social purpose—upholding the right to be informed, heard, and understood—aims to create positive societal impact beyond requirements of its non-profit status or financial considerations. Any organization or business in the language industry can create comparable commitment to language-related social purpose by focusing on improving social integration, reducing barriers, combating misinformation, and facilitating access to social services. In multilingual Canada, language services bridge communication gaps by providing linguistic and educational support for essential information across healthcare, education, legal systems, and public services. By integrating social purpose into its core operations, businesses, social enterprise and nonprofit organization will be able to do both, serve the public and advocate for the fundamental right to communicate effectively in languages understood the best.

1. Upholding the Right to Be Informed

Access to information in one's native language is the key component of individual autonomy and empowerment in Canada's diverse society. Language barriers can hinder newcomers, refugees, and non-English/French speakers from understanding their rights and available services, particularly in areas such as employment, housing, and finance. Providing critical information in multiple languages is essential to ensure equal access and protect the rights of all residents.

MCIS tackles language barriers by offering affordable or free high-quality #translation services for crucial documents like medical forms, legal notices, and government information. We partner with hospitals, schools, and social services to promote multilingual communication. This approach ensures informed consent and empowers individuals in making important life decisions, fulfilling our social mission.

Canada's multiculturalism/ multi-language policies, however, also require practical implementation to effect real change. We collaborate with policymakers to ensure critical information is accessible in multiple languages, including French and #signlanguages. This encompasses public health announcements, emergency alerts, and legal rights information. Our approach proved especially valuable during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we provided essential, multilingual information about vaccination safety to thousands of digital users seeking professional guidance.

2. Upholding the Right to Be Heard

For many Canadians from diverse linguistic backgrounds, the ability to communicate in their preferred language is crucial for their well-being, especially in sensitive situations like legal, healthcare, and educational settings.

Driven by social purpose, we do prioritize certain types of expert #interpretation services. In legal settings, for example, we both train professionals and provide specialized court interpreters for non-English or non-French speakers, ensuring they fully understand proceedings and can actively participate in their defense. In healthcare, our interpreters highly trained in medical vocabularies facilitate accurate communication between patients and medical professionals, potentially saving lives by enabling precise symptom description and proper adherence to medical advice.

But here where having a “social purpose” makes all the difference. Since early days MCIS understood that reactive service delivery is the entry point for strategic advocacy for systemic change. We, for example, now focus on promoting professional interpretation services in all public settings, including hospitals, schools, and law enforcement agencies. This approach aims to replace ad-hoc or informal arrangements, such as relying on family members for interpretation.

In addition, and based on the data we are collecting and analyzing, we also found that investing in video and phone interpretation services for Canadian rural and remote areas where in-person interpreters are scarce is crucial. The technology we use ensures that even individuals in isolated communities can communicate effectively.

3. Upholding the Right to Be Understood

The right to be understood is closely tied to the concepts of dignity and respect. e.g. offering services that increase communication clarity, comprehension and #cultural competence of the nuances of gender, certain medical conditions, legal terms, or social norms may carry different connotations in various cultural contexts.

For example, we invests in training programs that build cultural competence among our language professionals, staff and volunteers to help with understanding of the diverse backgrounds of the communities they serve as a measure of quality of services we provide. We also engage in community outreach programs that promote linguistic inclusivity and cultural exchange. By hosting workshops, seminars, and community events, we facilitate dialogues between different cultural groups, thereby fostering mutual understanding. This aligns with the broader social purpose of promoting inclusivity, empathy, and respect within Canadian society.

Advocacy is the Key to Integrating Social Purpose

Our experience with maximizing social purpose and impact shows that the language services organization and businesses should proactively seek and create strategic partnerships with non-profits, for-profits, government agencies, and community groups. Our collaboration with human rights organizations, for example, further amplified our ability to advocate for policy changes guaranteeing language rights. Our partnerships with a large number of educational institutions helped us tremendously with increasing awareness about linguistic diversity while promoting the study of translation and interpretation as critical fields of human knowledge.

In other words we can say with certainty - #advocacy is a crucial "secret ingredient" for integrating social purpose into (language) industry organizations and businesses. Beyond providing direct services, all of us could actively shape public policy by engaging in public debates on rights and reforms. By being established as thought leaders, we can become more effective in protecting human and linguistic rights throughout Canada.

Conclusion

For over 35 years, MCIS has advocated for linguistic minorities' rights to information, expression, and comprehension. By diminishing language barriers, MCIS promotes equal access to services and societal participation in Canada and worldwide. To fully integrate its social purpose to uphold the human right to be informed, heard and understood, MCIS will continue to develop strategic partnerships, engage in advocacy, and leverage innovative technology to prevent language barriers from hindering newcomers' full engagement in Canadian society as well as their opportunities for creating prosperity and growth.

Further reading:

Further reading:

1. Building a Purpose-Driven Future: MCIS's Social Purpose Governance Evolution
2. Reimagining Nonprofit Leadership: The Power of Shared Governance
3. Advancing SDGs with Appreciative Inquiry and Language Rights
4. The Evolution and Promise of Social Economy in Canada: Learning from European Models
5. Governance Meets Global Goals: Understanding the ISO 37000-SDG Connection