Language Access for New Americans (LANA)  

A unique collaboration creates greater access to translation services for New Americans.

In 2004, a group of MPC members interested in promoting diversity in Maine noted a lack of proposals addressing the issue in a unified fashion. MPC convened organizations serving the immigrant and refugee community who identified availability of translation and interpretation services as a priority.  

After consulting with service providers and studying what was currently available, the group of funders and service providers decided to create Language Access for New Americans (LANA) to increase the availability in Portland of high quality, affordable and accessible interpretation and translation services to the refugee and immigrant communities and to the organizations and businesses that serve them.

The mission of LANA is to be a central clearinghouse for translation and interpretation services in the Greater Portland area. In addition to maintaining an inventory of services, LANA works to increase the availability and professionalism of the services. LANA offers courses at Portland High School to already bilingual and multilingual students, so they understand that their language skills can provide them with career options. Training is also provided to adult interpreters so they can improve their skills. A third aspect of the project, is to provide smaller grants to nonprofits to make the translation and interpretation services and cultural awareness training affordable for them.