ORLANDO | Thanks to the donation of services by the Central Florida-based CCI Group, the LGBT+ Center Orlando will now be able to offer health, legal and immigration services to the LGBTQ community in over 200 languages.
CCI Group, a linguistic services provider, will provide The Center Orlando with a worldwide network of interpreters and translators to provide these services. This is the first initiative to provide such services in Central Florida to LGBTQ individuals regardless of the language they speak.
“Many times, the people we serve are talking about extremely personal and sensitive subjects and, in the past, would need to bring a family member or friend to interpret for them,” said Joel Morales, director of operations and program director of the Orlando United Assistance Center, in a press release. “Unfortunately, in too many cases, this would result in the individual not coming to us to keep their needs secret. Thanks to the work of CCI Group, this will not happen again.”
Central Florida has grown significantly in its diversity and with that comes people from all around the world who speak different languages. Although Spanish is widely spoken in Orlando, there are other dominant languages in the city as well including Portuguese, Creole and Vietnamese.
With the new partnership, CCI Group will be offering over-the-phone interpreting, translation of documents, in-person interpretation, remote simultaneous translations and sign language interpretation for all of The Center Orlando’s services, including mental health counseling, immigration services, career planning, HIV testing and more.
“Learning about this need was heartbreaking and I knew this was an opportunity to not only help this organization, but our community as a whole,” said Indy Vega, founder and CEO of CCI Group, in the release. “I know first-hand the barriers of language and culture and I want to make sure people who need critical services do not have to worry about understanding English.
For more information on CCI Group and the services they provide, visit MyCCIGroup.com. For more information on The Center Orlando’s other services, visit TheCenterOrlando.org.
