Communicating with people with diverse literacy needs has never been more important – especially as we consider the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the number of natural disasters that have affected our community.
We encourage our clients and colleagues to consider translating Easy Read into languages other than English to help get vital information to the people who need it.
This ABC News report looks into the issue and highlights calls from advocates working with diverse communities for simpler content, not just straight translations.
If you are deaf or hard of hearing, you can read the video transcript here.
Translated Easy Read content is simple and clear. There’s less jargon and complex terminology. And the pictures help people with low levels of literacy in English or their first language. This leads to better understanding and, ultimately, better results from each communication piece. We work closely with a number of trusted translation agencies to support us in this work and, together, we help our clients get their message across.
We commend the Australian Government for offering information about COVID-19 in Easy Read. However, we do recommend that more organisations consider offering Easy Read versions of their translated information as well.
You can find out more about the benefits of Easy Read here.
