How translators in the Netherlands are making Covid-19 information more accessible
Author: Laís Martins
This article is part of Changing the Narrative. Articles in this series are written by student or early career journalists who took part in The Local’s training course on solutions-focused migration reporting. Find out more about the project here.
Across generations and countries, the year 2020 has brought an unprecedented challenge: how to navigate a global pandemic. With vaccines still in development, the most efficient resources to fight back the new coronavirus at the moment are, according to experts, social distancing and information.
For many people, neither one nor the other can be taken for granted. Vulnerable communities around the world are faced with a lack of access to information on Covid-19 and how to protect against it.
This is the case for many asylum seekers, refugees, and other immigrants living in European countries where they don’t fully master the local language or English, making official government guidelines and information inaccessible for them.
In a report released in October, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) found that immigrants face a much higher risk of becoming infected with Covid-19 than native-born people. In some countries the OECD looked at, the infection risk can double for immigrants when compared to native-born.