Cure your cabin fever

March is looking to be a fun month!  All work and no play makes for dull minds, so you'll find us celebrating at two great events to raise money for two keystones of the Portland immigrant & refugee community. 

The first is Portland Public Schools' Rock Around the World event.  Proceeds go to support an intensive summer school of English  Language Learning students.  A great cause, but the party itself is worth the ticket price.  Great foods from many nations, and dance music from the U.S. and beyond.  Impromptu dance lessons abound, and there's no shame if you can't do the steps because it's guaranteed that everyone will be learning at least one new dance that night!  Date: Friday, March 11, 7-11 pm, Italian Heritage Center in Portland. 

The second is Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project's CeleSoirée, a night of art, music and food.  Few art shows are as fun as ILAP's.  There is live music (this year drumming by Jordan Benissan and flamenco by Olas--both will make you want to move your feet and clap your hands) and more delicious food than you can imagine.  And the silent art auction--so much, such talent!  ILAP's work has touched the lives of countless immigrant and refugee families in Maine.  Supporting an amazing organization and possibly winning some breathtaking art.  How can you go wrong?   Date: March 25th, 5pm-9pm at the Portland Company, 58 Fore Street in Portland.

See you there!

Trying to fade into the background

Interpreter of the Month: Hamideh Elhaei

This isn't Hamideh's ID photo. 

It is one of the many failed attempts at capturing Hamideh in an ID photo.  This is how Hamideh is most days--shy and quick to laugh.  Hamideh never, ever wants to be in the spotlight (in fact, she's probably going to kill me for posting this).   And like many good interpreters, she's happiest when she can do her job and people never notice that she's there.

Hamideh works the night shift, and more than once she has juggled two and three jobs come interpret for someone who needed her assistance.  No assignment is too large or too small for Hamideh.  "If they need me, I can go," she always says.

Most importantly, her compassionate heart is tempered with a fiery love of what is right.  While shy and reluctant to face confrontation, she also is brave and more than once has overcome her shyness to stand her ground ensure that someone got the care they needed. 

This month was a tough one for Hamideh, and she had many hard appointments that asked her to balance the interpreter Code of Ethics with pressures from the community.  She did well, but we know it wasn't easy.  We nominated her our Interpreter of the Month because we wanted to say "thank you" for all that she does and the heart that she puts into her work.  Thank you Hamideh; we see you!

Getting a new start

It's not easy to begin again.  It is common for refugees to arrive in the United States with only one bag of possessions.  Often their credentials and degrees from other countries do not transfer to our American system, and they are left with difficult choices about how they will work to support their family. 


Samuel "El Hag" Albino was once
a professor in Egypt.  He now works
as a CCME Language Partners
interpreter and a case manager
at Community Counseling Center.
(Image Source:Portland Press Herald)


Recently many of our interpreters participated in a job fair, aimed at solving this very problem.  Sometimes the most difficult barrier is just getting to know the right people.  Catholic Charities Maine and other community partners worked to organize an event where qualified refugees and immigrants could meet and network with industry leaders.  This event was the first of its kind. 


I'm excited about this new endeavor.  We're amazed daily at Catholic Charities Language Partners by the background and experience of our interpreters.  We have among our staff doctors, professors, nurses, architects, and engineers.  It is an honor to offer our positions as interpreters as a means for our staff to move back to the professional credentials they once had. As we all know, sometimes getting the right job is as much about who you know as what you know.  And getting to know these sorts of highly skilled refugeees is one of the perks of my job.  I'm glad that these industry leaders got the chance as well.

It's more than being bilingual

Boston University's news outlet, BU Today, published an article about their professional interpreter training program and the role of interpreters in the hospitals and courts today .


Years ago, I enrolled at this same Boston University program because I knew that interpreting is more than being bilingual.  So many times, lives literally hang on the turn of our words; I wanted to be sure I was getting it right.  I remember my assessment test, and how my palms sweated--"Am I good enough to become an interpreter?" 


Today language testing is becoming standard practice among professional interpreters.  It is not enough to be bilingual, we have to know nuances and double-meanings, slang and technical jargon.  Every interpreter will tell you that's one of the things that makes our job fun--we never stop learning! 


As a user of interpreter services, stop to ask if your interpreter is language tested (and ask to see a copy of the results!).  Or work with a company like Catholic Charities Language Partners that provides a guarantee of quality screening and credentials.  If you are interested in learning more about interpreter credentialling, you can contact Language Access for New Americans (LANA), who is leading the movement in Maine towards more rigorous interpreter quality standards.


Yes, until we achieve state and national licensing of interpreters it will be cumbersome to check the credentials of every interpreter you use.  However, lives hang in the balance, and interpreting is more than being bilingual.

"Neither snow nor rain nor..."



Walaa Al Dabbagh



On December 27th, Maine was struck with a fierce blizzard. Some offices even began issuing cancellation notices the day before. The morning of the blizzard, while the rest of the state was still sleeping soundly, blanketed with over a foot of snow, Walaa Al Dabbagh went above and beyond the call of duty. She awoke early and began digging out her car. Scheduled to interpret for a surgery at 6:30am that morning, she called Malvina at 6:35am to tell her that she was very very sorry, she was going to be a few minutes late to her appointment. She arrived only 10 minutes late and then when she got there interpreted for not one, but two patients who needed interpreters that morning. A gold medal for reliability!

Thank you Walaa! On that snowy morning and every day, you are always a paragon of responsibility and dedication to the field. We thank you for all your hard work.

Walaa has earned herself a chance to win a registration for the IMIA Annual Conference this fall, and a Catholic Charities Maine messenger bag to carry her planner, dictionaries, and timesheets!

And a thank you to all of you who venture out in these snowy months, second only to the U.S. Postal Service are the Catholic Charities Interpreters! :)