Lost in translation: ethnic groups out in the cold on Covid-19 information

Australia’s multicultural communities are calling on governments to bolster their information campaigns surrounding the Covid-19 jab.

Ambrose Mareng, with daughter About Mayar, 4, and son Nihiah Mayar, 2, is forced to translate crucial government vaccine information for his South Sudanese community. Picture: Aaron Francis

Australia’s multicultural communities are calling on state and federal governments to bolster their information campaigns surrounding the Covid-19 jab, as ­concerns mount over the risk posed by dangerous vaccine conspiracy theories to people with limited English language skills.

Melbourne father of eight ­Ambrose Mareng, who founded the Sudd Foundation to support his South Sudanese community, said many people in his tight-knit community with limited English had struggled to access reliable ­information about the vaccine.

Mr Mareng, 52, said his organisation had been left to “bridge the gap” left by government information, translating Covid-19 information into Dinka to share on social media, and hitting the phones to reach those not online.

“There is a lot of negativity (surrounding the vaccine) in the media which confuses individuals and families,” he said.

“That’s where we can come in to bridge the gap with the right information from the government, translate it, and share it around.”

Mr Mareng got the AstraZeneca jab on Friday. “I booked my first shot to make people feel confident to go and get the vaccine, and to go and get tested to make sure they haven’t got the virus,” he said.

“That’s the only way we can stop this disease, and stop it from causing more damage.”

Mr Mareng and other community leaders met with Multicultural Affairs Minister Ros Spence this week to discuss the problems in reaching out to communities, where he suggested adding “cultural workers” to vaccine centres.

“If we had a few people in the centre who can help with translating things that are very complicated in a medical context, (that would be helpful),” he said.

Amar Singh, president of Turbans 4 Australia, said many Australian Sikhs relied on vaccine information shared by community leaders in WhatsApp, Facebook or Viber groups rather than mainstream English news.

Mr Singh said the lack of a co-ordinated public health campaign aimed at linguistically diverse communities meant misinformation could “easily take hold”.

He said federal and state governments had failed to disseminate updates about the vaccine on social media networks and had instead left “critical information” sitting on “government websites”.

GP and community leader Jamal Rifi, who practises in the Arabic-speaking suburbs of Sydney’s west, said although government messaging in languages other than English had improved, a national campaign was needed to fight misinformation.

“(The campaign) needs to speak to every language and community, where you have a national campaign and a targeted campaign by locality or ethnic background,” he said.

AMA president Omar Khorshid said translating messaging was only “one piece of the puzzle”, and the government should be doing more to “reassure all Australians that the vaccines available are very safe and very effective”.

NSW Health said it was “engaging with multicultural groups” and provided information in 57 languages. The Victorian government said it had conducted “more than 20 community meetings” to reach diverse communities.

The federal government said it had given $1.3 million to multicultural groups to “reach their communities”, as well as a campaign translated into 32 languages.