Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hello, and welcome to MC live a livecast live stream, where we have guests from all around the world. And we talk about things related to language, culture, localization, globalization, internationalization, interpreting, and all of the other SEO keywords that I'm sure I will put down in the description. After this today, my guest is Lawson Stapleton who comes to us from ABC. Multi-lingual all the way down under in Australia, down in south Australia. Welcome Lawson. How are you? Very good. Very good. Thank you. And, um, before we get started here, just a quick note from Nimsy Nimsy insights is a market research and consulting company. Excuse me, we specialize in language, culture, international business, globalization, internationalization, all of the things that go on behind the scenes, in the shadow shadow industry, we call localization that helps enable global brands to be global today, though. We're scaling it back just a little bit.
Speaker 0 00:01:04 And we're talking about more of a local level. We're talking about interpretation specifically to Australia and Lawson. You joined in kind of last time we talked about this. You were joining in, in the chat. When I had Hannah, my colleague, Hannah, who's doing research on the Australian language market right now, and you had some very insightful things. And I said, why don't you come on and talk about this because, um, I am now experts when it comes to talking about Australia, especially if we're talking about something as nuanced as the indigenous language scene, like what's going on down there and having been in this industry for a while, if I am ignorant to this, I guarantee you, there are other people that are ignorant to this fascinating market. And so thank you for coming on and sharing your knowledge with us,
Speaker 1 00:01:54 Like evaluates, exciting to be here.
Speaker 0 00:01:57 Well, let's get right into it. Tell us a little bit about yourself. What, um, and we were talking a little bit before this, about your company and your role in it and the role of indigenous languages in your company and how that kind of evolved. Give us, give us the story.
Speaker 1 00:02:12 Sure. Uh, so the agency that I worked for ABC multi-lingual, uh, located in Adelaide, south Australia, uh, historically focused on international languages, uh, being really languages anywhere from other, from Australia, about five and a half years ago, there were a couple of inquiries into the business as to do you do any indigenous languages. And at that time we didn't and we had a bit of an event. And so we thought we should do something about this and basically start off with one particular language called, uh, injure, which comes from the far Northwest of south Australia, uh, from a place called the <inaudible> lands or achy Y oh, I'm so glad you down these, because
Speaker 0 00:02:56 We were struggling last time. It, it's very hard just at the written, um, Latin script to be able to pronounce these languages. And I'm very conscious of that because it, me not being able to pronounce something. I don't want that to be construed as disrespect. Oh,
Speaker 1 00:03:12 Aye. I it's encouraged to give it a go. Um, all our indigenous friends really appreciate it and love it when we, when we give it a go. Good,
Speaker 0 00:03:21 Good. Oh, that makes me feel so much better. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. You were saying, um, you started off with this language from the north.
Speaker 1 00:03:30 Yes. And, uh, basically, um, it, it sort of was one of those dawning moments of why, why don't we do indigenous languages? Um, why isn't anyone or is anyone doing indigenous languages? And at that time, there were only really two agencies focusing on indigenous languages, which was the Aboriginal interpreting service or AIS in the Northern territory, uh, based out of Springs and down. But I've been around for about 25 years. Uh, and I worked with many, many communities, uh, but list, uh, about nine languages. Okay. Uh, belonging to what we would sort of dissect into the central desert languages, uh, which is really the center of Australia desert. It is what it is remote. Yeah. And then in, uh, the other reason that I primarily deal with is the, what we would call the top end, which is basically Darwin along sort of the post or the Northern territory and the surrounding islands. So we have, uh, Tiwi islands, uh, gal, Winokur, all the crocodile islands and groups, uh, and those languages, uh, if we're looking at that way, we've got sort of languages like Yano mana. Uh, but you're no matter is kind of like saying Farsi, but we know it could be Persian or diary or like maybe even a Zurich. Um, it's often pretty common
Speaker 0 00:04:56 With, um, indigenous and, um, I'll just say indigenous languages that these different dialects, that the line between what constitutes a language and what constitute a dialect is not always so clear. Right.
Speaker 1 00:05:11 I totally agree. And, uh, with your Lumada, um, it's, it is a bit misleading and the urinal Marta is recognized as a language, but we're actually dealing with 32 different dialects. Um, so as a service provider, if we get a request for your Armada, uh, responsibility is to navigate, okay, is this, for example, a jumbo upon you or a cup upon you, um, did determine which we're working with. And also, I guess what we would know as localization, making sure that the liquid language and dialect is appropriate to that target audience.
Speaker 0 00:05:42 Yes. Well, so that really complicates things. Why, and are you able to fulfill those requests? Um, because that's, that sounds, there's a reason I don't do interpreting, and I've said this before, and I've said this before, publicly, because interpreting is hard. Um, localization, localization translation is a complex thing. I'm, uh, I'm a translation guy, right. It's my background. And it's a complex thing, but you take all of that and then you add the complexity of like time date and, you know, making sure people are in a specific location at a certain time. And it just, it becomes very difficult. So it was like my skin kind of crawls. When you say there's 32 different dialects, because it's like, okay, it's just one language that I need. Oh, wait, it's that language. So, but are they mutually intelligible though? What happens if you can't find the one of those specific dialects, is it better to reschedule or is it better to send, um, the not specific interpreter does that, am I making sense?
Speaker 1 00:06:46 I totally, totally. It's nice to speak to someone who understands. Um, I don't know. Like I, I'm just thinking like,
Speaker 0 00:06:54 All right, I'm already thinking if I got this project, how many different ways could I fail and what would I try to do? What are my contingency plans? That's where my mind goes, like immediately to contingency.
Speaker 1 00:07:05 That is exactly right. Um, in indigenous languages, it's really, it's, it's quite difficult. So to Amelie, answer your question. There are intermutual languages. Um, so for example, if I was in the central desert language and I had it in Gera and I had young Congetta, um, they are intermutual for the most part. Like you could get away with that. Um, so depending on what you're doing, uh, we, we could continue and providing that the individual, uh, confirms like as in we would throw the option out, we wouldn't obliged. Um, so if we had a no, no, and if we did a project, um, if we, we would definitely work with the particular source language, but we would basically say what's achievable and what's not rather than setting up a client for failure.
Speaker 0 00:07:49 It makes perfect sense. And we'll end of course, it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's interpreting is it's about the clients, of course, right? You gotta, you're, you're a business you're making money, but it's interpreting as highly, highly, highly about the, the people that you're serving, the limited language, limited English proficiency in this case. Um, communities talk a little bit about, um, you said earlier, you mentioned like what you're asking yourself, why, why are we not doing indigenous languages who is doing indigenous languages? Why aren't more people doing indigenous languages as you were answering those questions? What answers did you find?
Speaker 1 00:08:30 Uh, well, where do I start? Um, so getting back to the other providers, so five and a half years ago, the only providers I could find were two and they were solely doing indigenous one, the Aboriginal interpreting service located in the Northern territory. Um, and then we had, which were formerly the Kimberley interpreting services, uh, which are now I believe the Western Australia interpreting services. Um, I, I found basically that the reason being is that both of those T geographics hosts the most indigenous languages that are living, breathing everyday spoken. Uh, so it makes, it makes sense that they're providing a service to an area that is actually active. Whereas our site east coast, new south Wales, Victoria, um, has mania at going at the south. Uh, and most of south Australia, uh, unfortunately those languages have either come to the point of extinction, um, or, uh, they're being revived, which means the spoken, capacity's not there. The individual's gonna speak English.
Speaker 0 00:09:39 Yeah. What, what, what does that mean? Walk us through that for people that are listening, the extinct language, endangered language being revived, what do these things mean? What does it mean when the language is being revived? And for those of you in the comments, hi, Oscar who was always in our comments is here again, and other people will get to you in a second, but yeah, didn't talk to us a little bit about that.
Speaker 1 00:10:03 So revival language, I can give you two examples. Um, so part of the reconciliation of indigenous affairs, the federal and state governments made basically financial pools to rectify language as a part of culture for identification for indigenous people. Um, so basically, uh, if we use, for example, I'm on Ghana land at the moment, that's the people's love of the Adelaide Plains. Um, that language basically came to a point of things. Um, and what they're doing to bring the language back is that they are referring to old colonial texts and predominantly evangelical and Lutheran missionary texts, where they translated the Bibles and that taking the words from those sources to basically make a dictionary, if you will, or crafting sentences to try and understand the grammar, the syntax of how that language was constructed. Um, the only problem with those programs is that as well, um, intended as they are, uh, people will have this, uh, this belief that, okay, we're going to rectify our language.
Speaker 1 00:11:15 Therefore it's going to be a bit like perhaps Hebrew coming back to Israel. Um, the problem is that we don't have enough resource for a language to be fully brought back. And also when it is, uh, revived, so to speak, it's usually monopolized. Um, meaning that if you, um, do get a service that wants a rectified language, uh, you've got one source. And as we know in translating a lot of the time, we need to double-check or have it read over by a secondary source. Can we do that? So I think so it makes it super
Speaker 0 00:11:47 Tough to find proofread, proofreaders and translation. Like I said, I'm a translation guy. Right. But it's like, yeah, finding that first person, it's an uphill battle by that second person. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:11:58 So you're not going to get a proofreader. And then, uh, then, uh, it is a question of legitimacy. Uh, how, how do I know, uh, that this is, um, the actual language rather than a bit of interpretive translating, right. Um, so how genuine is that? I can't tell that. And so, for example, in Queensland, I offered $20,000 grants per language, and there's one agency that took 42 languages. Um, okay. Yeah. And I think that's an excellent idea of trying to get attention to those languages, looking into the history, but it's, it's just it's money that could have been spent better and probably monitored. Um, I think is a fair criticism.
Speaker 0 00:12:45 Yeah. It's, it's, it's especially, it's always challenging to when there's, when there's money involved, right. When there's money involved when there's governments involved, because what we're talking about here is language, and we're talking about people's access language access, nonetheless, right. People's ability to hear and be heard and understand the environment that they're living in. But at the same time there, in order for that support service to exist, there needs to be government contracts. There needs to be regulations. There needs to be associations and companies like, um, just to do this work. So it's like, it's not, there's no easy answers, right. And all we can do is just the, all we can do and make sure that the most people are getting at getting access to the language that they need. And we actually did quite a bit of work, um, at Nimsy looking into language access for the medical medical interpretation for underserved communities in the state of California here in the U S and it is just it's.
Speaker 0 00:13:47 Well, I don't want to comment on that. Read the publication of that report still, still outstanding, of course. But, um, so I don't want to comment on it, but it's just so complex. It's so right. And I think, you know, in, in the intro and the description of this, w we refer to this as the shadow industry, right. Localization, interpretation, all of this, because if we're doing our jobs, right. People shouldn't even know that we exist. Right. We're here to serve, we're here to facilitate communication, not to be the communicators. Right. And, um, even more so when it's communication access to that communication is, um, tied to things like safety tied to things like health and tied to things like respect. And, um, what's the term I'm looking for. Just pride, I would say. And, um, so I guess the next thing I want to go into is what is, what role does access to interpretation play for these different communities? Is it, and this is an honest question, is it like a life and death? Like, they don't speak a lick of English and they need access, um, because they don't travel outside their communities so much, or is it a nice to have to have an interpreter? And when you're going to a doctors, what's the severity here,
Speaker 1 00:15:17 Uh, case by case community. But generally it's, it's, it's, uh, it's quite a bit in, in this, we have communities that don't have infrastructure. Um, they rely on, uh, they like goods being brought in because they don't have local resource for water or food.
Speaker 0 00:15:38 Is there, like, when you say remote communities, like literally remote, like
Speaker 1 00:15:42 Yeah, yeah. I'm talking like, yeah, like 1500 or 1,500 kilometers from nowhere. Um, wow. You don't have graceful. So you'll, you're dependent on, on trucking coming in. Um, that was really bad during COVID. Um, as you can tell, because in rural remote communities, it's nearly impossible to get basic services in towns. Um, whether that's medical policing, um, obviously you're not gonna have the industry. So unemployment is difficult. Um, you're not getting, there are attempts to education, but programs are difficult to be in bilingual mode. Um, so the delivery is not always effective. So
Speaker 0 00:16:25 Are they teaching in these, in these communities? Are they teaching the kids like are, do most of the people? Is it like other countries where it's like, yeah, English proficiency isn't that high, but I'm amongst the younger generations, all of the kids, quote, unquote, speak English or speak the native language of the country. Is it like that type of situation or are they actually instructing the next generation in the indigenous languages?
Speaker 1 00:16:53 Uh, I think they're trying really hard. It's just attendance is difficult. Um, so that's, they tried delivering, I know in, sorry, I know this, uh, Queensland and south Australia had bilingual programs in native language and in English, uh, to try and deliver it. Uh, but I know that there were complications. Yeah. I actually don't know if they're still doing it, but I know attendance rates are awful, but one thing's for sure, uh, spoken, um, if there's going to be any ability to communicate in English, it would be spoken and that's going to be very limited. Um, the literacy rates, reading and writing, uh, uh, really bad, really bad, and, uh, sort of going back to what we talked about with translating as an agency, we learned that early on, and that was, that was hard to digest for a lot of stakeholders in that, um, that would come to us with a document that will be 30 pages and go, we want this translated into, um, I dunno.
Speaker 1 00:17:53 Um, I don't know. Oh, well, yeah, yeah. And we're going, Hey, this is, this is a great idea, you know, very thoughtful, but you're going to lose 30 pages on anyone. Uh, but also the literacy rates show us that. Yeah. Uh, the literacy rights, uh, not going to be effective for you to get this any way. And that's why we started audio transcribing. Um, so we basically do a script or turn it into a script, do the voiceovers, and then we can put it on that the client can then put it on their website or put it on their phone or whatever, go out to the community and they can have the audio and they'll actually engage like, cause they're listening and understanding as opposed to reading and, or not being able to read.
Speaker 0 00:18:37 Wow. That's fascinating.
Speaker 2 00:18:41 I haven't, I've never heard that before, so
Speaker 0 00:18:43 Sorry. I'm getting a little feedback from, I think, uh, can you hear that? It's okay if we can, it's alive. That's why we do this live lower expectations on audio quality. But, um, no, I I'm just, I'm speechless because it's rare that I'm speechless because I just want you to think you've seen it all. I've never worked on a project where it taking English written content and translating it into an audio delivery mechanism because I would still call that translation. I wouldn't call that interpreting because you're taking translate, you're taking written text and translating it. What you're doing is providing an additional layer of value on top of that, by making the modality, the delivery mechanism, more conducive to the localized audience, to the local audience, right. That you're trying to reach. Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:19:31 Exactly. Yeah. It's um, it's, it's proven to be very effective. So we've, we've done that for, we did it for COVID, uh, we've done it for diabetes education. We've done it for, uh, drug and alcohol, how we've done it for banking. We've done it for, um, social welfare services. Uh, and basically the, all of a sudden the understanding the attendance rate has dramatically gone up.
Speaker 0 00:19:57 Wow. That's amazing. Great. Outside of the box, thinking on that, um, who are you doing these things for? So like when you're interpreting a and w we just discussed when you're doing it for the communities. Right. But who pays the bills? Like who, who has the purse strings on this? And it, the reason I ask is because who has the purse strings has a lot of power in deciding what gets done. Right. And so it's interesting to me.
Speaker 1 00:20:27 Yeah, well, uh, straight off the bat, uh, state local and federal government, um, and, and you'll be right. I mean, I originally, when we started, um, for example, with that sort of mode of communication of translating as an agency is sort of, it was a bit of a conundrum because it was international law languages. I wouldn't question it would. Okay. That's table. We'll do that. Thank you very much for business, but with indigenous, uh, what was happening is that, uh, again, a government agency would come along, say a water resource management would come along and I would go, oh, we want this, uh, 30 page document done. And we want to in this language and we want to buy next. We know it's like, we want it tomorrow.
Speaker 0 00:21:10 And it's only going to cost 20 bucks, right?
Speaker 1 00:21:13 Yeah, exactly. And it'll be perfect. Perfect quality
Speaker 0 00:21:19 Into a language that doesn't have a formalized alphabets let alone me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And so
Speaker 1 00:21:26 What we found was that, uh, the community with the, uh, Tran trans license would throw it back and go, okay, there's a couple of things here. One 30 pages gonna be lost, uh, too, there are cultural components to this that are just not that we're not gonna understand them. So we're going to have to totally reword it. Oh, I want to
Speaker 0 00:21:43 Talk about that, but a pin in that.
Speaker 1 00:21:45 Yeah. And then, uh, thirdly, uh, I've got my own cultural business, so this is probably gonna take three months. Yeah. Because these people are busy, right. It's like,
Speaker 0 00:21:57 It's not like, oh, I'll just find another translator or I'll just find another interpreter. It's like, you call the first one, you call the second one.
Speaker 1 00:22:04 Oh, wait, what in the early days would have, um, yeah, a hundred percent. Um, we don't have that luxury. And in the early days, when we were trying to find people who were already trained or already certified, it was extremely limited in that. Um, if we had a, um, it, depending on which, which mob, or, or perhaps drive, if you want, um, they, they go for longer periods of time with things. So if there's a funeral, uh, the, I don't in particular, I could be away for three months. Um, if there's men's initiation, they could be away for six months. Um, at the same time, it could also just be two weeks or just could be a couple of diets. Um, but so what we had at the beginning when I was getting back to your question is, um, I would have the water resource went through the steady decline.
Speaker 1 00:22:50 It struck me, um, you got to a point where the translator would refuse the work, and we would have to go back to the, to the stakeholder and just say, oh, the client and say, Hey, look, your work's been refused. Um, that's never really been happy. That's never really happened before. It's, it's a bit unheard of, of a translator refusing to do a big job like that. Right. Um, and so then they'd come back to us and y'all will explain yourself again, cause we want to pay for this. You, you must explain it. So, um, and that's where basically I just decided, okay, I've got to go live and breathe this to understand it. And so what I found was by actually being with indigenous communities, hanging out and understanding things, uh, is that the way that it's worded and done, uh, there needs to be this collaboration of actually, this is how it not just literally with words translates, this is how it translates culturally.
Speaker 1 00:23:44 And within the context of community, and this is the most department, why would get it across? And this is not being done. So what ended up happening is that we would get a document, the 30 page document, uh, the customer would then agree to, uh, give it to the, uh, the oldest who we work with, who the elders would, then culturalize it, and would return it in a more, um, sort of break it down and then we'd give it back to the customer to check and compare the original with the cultural version. And this is all in this still in English. And then what we do is we make sure is the message being conveyed. Is it still, does it still parallel between the two? Yes, it does. Okay. We've essentially broken it down, simplified it. Now we send it back for translation and instead of 30 pages, it would end up being five, but this whole process would take longer than what it would be to just translate the 30 pages. And then by the time we got to five pages, then when it was translated, no one would read it because of the literacy rights. So what we ended up doing is that we would then take those five pages as a script, and then the elders would have a community meeting and they would then be able to play the audio script. So then there's no, um, you're not detouring. Like it is
Speaker 2 00:25:06 What it is, game of telephone. Whereas like, is that really
Speaker 0 00:25:10 What Dr. Fowchee said
Speaker 2 00:25:12 Or as exactly. So that happens
Speaker 0 00:25:15 In English. I think that doesn't mean you don't need the complexity of translation, like messages, particularly around what's been going on this last year have been, um, challenging to understand. So, yeah,
Speaker 1 00:25:31 So we do that now. Um, so that rhythm at first, just wasn't accepted. And then when we would, I think it sort of, we, we came to butt heads as us and, and our indigenous translators, what butting heads with the government, and then the government finally sort of yielded and said, all right, give it a crack. And then when it works that like, this is the best thing since sliced bread. Let's, let's do this every time. Sorry. Do
Speaker 0 00:25:56 You know of any other, um, locales markets, governments, um, peoples around the world using such a method? Or is this, are you guys the only folks doing it? Because like I said, I hadn't heard of this and it, Hey, if anybody's watching this, like leave a comment and tag me, um, cause I'm interested, but have you heard of any of anything Lawson?
Speaker 1 00:26:15 Uh, I, I have not. Um, in saying that I haven't, um, I was so busy looking for a solution. I stopped looking at other services. Um, so it's possible. I don't know. Um, but I know we do it.
Speaker 0 00:26:29 Yeah, no, it's, it's interesting. Well, maybe, maybe it'll spread, right? Yeah. So with the, um, just one last thing, the last thing I want to talk, talk about with you as the supply chain, what does that look like? Because particularly not in all interpreting situation, but my understanding as I learned more and more about this, the interpreting world, the interpreting profession is that it's, it's interesting because you're, you're serving the community while employing a member of the community. And this, this phenomenon is very distinct when you're serving underserved community or smaller communities. Right. Um, what are the complexities of working with indigenous language interpretation that perhaps aren't present if you're providing, you know, Trent Chinese translation for a visiting diplomat?
Speaker 1 00:27:31 Um, a few things. I mean, linguistically terminology, sometimes difficult. There's a lot of loan words depending on which community is being exposed to what, um, and those loans
Speaker 0 00:27:43 From a supply chain, from a staffing standpoint, from like the, the people's, uh, okay. Um, well, I shouldn't even interrupt you. You're probably getting there. No, no,
Speaker 1 00:27:52 No, no, no. Thank you. Um, it is
Speaker 0 00:27:56 It's, it's getting closer to five o'clock on Friday. It, can you tell I'm like, let's go, let's go Lawson. Let's go.
Speaker 1 00:28:05 Uh, that's a hell of a question. So, um, basically in the early days it was very, very difficult to find it's very difficult.
Speaker 0 00:28:12 And that's why I ask because I'm just kind of in awe that you're able to do it because I've been that guy, like calling Malaysian restaurants, like T H can I borrow your dishwasher?
Speaker 1 00:28:25 This is going to be interesting. I, I, so I originally thought I originally went door knocking, um, in areas that were known for being indigenous in certain suburbs, uh, that worked for me once. But what I found was that, um, uh, that's when I sort of probably wasn't the best area. So then from there I, um, flew to, uh, I went to the desert pretty much. Yeah. Um, and then I went to job seeking agencies because there is a high unemployment. I worked with some job seeking agencies. Um, they weren't that motivational. So I thought outside of the box and, uh, as a kid in Alice Springs, which is basically in the dead center of Australia, so it's the red desert stereotypical sort of looking in Australia place. Um, my uncle and auntie lived up there. And so as a kid, I was familiar with, uh, an area where the indigenous hanging out.
Speaker 1 00:29:20 And so I went to have a public barbecue. So what I did is I went to the calls and I bought are called supermarkets. Uh, and I bought about 10 kilos of me and I put it on the barbecue. And within about five minutes later, I had about 30 people around me. Um, and I actually, I was letting everyone have a, have a faith, have seven to eight and it opened up the conversation. And in that conversation, uh, I got direct contact numbers for elders. I got contact numbers for the current interpreters. I was a bit cheeky and I hung out at the front of the magistrate's court, uh, where, uh, that being serviced by another indigenous agency,
Speaker 2 00:30:00 Ambulance chaser is what we would call you here.
Speaker 1 00:30:06 Um, and basically I did everything that I could to, um, uh, try and break in socially, which I did. So I've got lifelong friends now, and now I'm friends with the elders from about 32 communities and I went and stayed with them. And, uh, from there they would then go, well, these people are community endorsed. They're not certified, but yeah, well that was
Speaker 2 00:30:29 Going to be my next question is what is the role of certification
Speaker 0 00:30:33 And these languages with such a small community, are there certifying bodies or is it more just like, like how does that work?
Speaker 1 00:30:41 There is a certifying a certified body. So we have naughty, which is the national accreditation authority for translators and interpreters. And in Australia, I totally agree with having something to pass the ball. You, I totally get that, but in Australia we prioritize naughty over everything else. So if you have a batch amassed as a PhD, it doesn't matter. Um, you have to have you naughty naughty essentially is a, is a test that has done over three hours or whatever. Um, as a bit of room there, I think the change, but, um, it sounds like a rabbit hole. We don't need to go down. So I'm all for it. I just did a test, um, with indigenous craze, they do do, um, certification, but it's just very difficult because there needs to be X amount of people, um, with the cultural calendar. Uh, it's hard to get people in one spot for one period of time.
Speaker 1 00:31:39 So they try the hardest they do, um, and, and good on them. Um, but as far as getting those numbers over, it's, it's not abundant and it's not quick and not, it does rely on service providers being able to give doctor on what languages trends are happening. Um, so I providing on who's giving what is, what language is coming up next. And yeah, it's, it's difficult. So we, we have the policy of, um, we do in-house training. So we do shadowing where, what we'll do is we'll get a senior deputy who is certified and we'll pair them with someone who's new, uh, to go to a job or simulate jobs over an extended period of time to make sure that the individual is up to a standard linguistically so that we know through one of our certified interpreters. Um, and then by shadowing, we give them actual simulated experience on, on what's going on. So they have the ability to react if a client is, uh, inclined in a particular way or not, um, if something goes wrong, what we can do. Um, so we, we, we basically have to do in-house training as well.
Speaker 0 00:32:46 Right. It's amazing.
Speaker 2 00:32:49 I I'm sorry,
Speaker 0 00:32:51 The feedback, I don't, I'm not sure if people can hear that. Um, the, so basically I asked you, tell me about your supply chain and what I'm hearing is. Yeah, there was none. I built it right with that. I mean, we built it, I went to the community and we built it together.
Speaker 2 00:33:09 Essentially. It took some barbecue,
Speaker 0 00:33:14 Like the most Australian recruiting story I've ever heard. I love that.
Speaker 1 00:33:18 Yeah. I mean, my, my biggest breakthrough was, uh, I, this is, this is like, this is a pretty real that this is a very real story. Uh, it's a sad, but it's triumph. And I think, uh, when I was in and I had this big barbecue, I met this lady who, um, she had a couple, a couple of kids, um, who had just grown up and she was heavily pregnant and she wanted to work. Um, she told me that she'd done all this stuff and, you know, she wanted to be introverted. She was an interpreter. She spoke four different, uh, central desert languages. Uh, I thought all grades, okay. But you're in Alice Springs on a work in Adelaide about, uh, for two weeks, I didn't hear anything from her. And then I get a phone call and she said, oh, I'm at the airport. Can you pick me up?
Speaker 1 00:34:06 And I was like, uh, which airport? I'm not in Alice Springs because I'm in Adelaide. I'm like, okay. Um, I said, what, what are you doing in LA? And she, um, she had had, uh, a, she had been beaten within an inch of her life and had been in the ICU unit. And, and she came down with a newborn and, uh, basically we, um, she had nothing, so it took her in and I drove her to every single appointment, um, to get it going. And today, uh, kids are in school, she's got her own house. She's bought her own car. Um, she looks off to extended family. Uh, she's got to study, um, and she's on El cap Caetano. So, um, we have a lot of stories like that, where people are breaking the mold and then that next generation is going to say that mom is a pioneer in setting this off in south Australia.
Speaker 1 00:35:00 Um, so, and then through her and her family, uh, we also worked for other agencies before and did training. They've come across as well. So it's basically been, do things a little bit outside of the box, make genuine relationships and it comes. Um, but as far as the supply chain as well, where we have conflicts of interest, um, we actually, um, we have a couple of things with conflict of interest, the supply chain. Um, one is, um, if we have a thing called skin name, uh, and so we have a, an English name, so we might have an interpreter code. Uh, Charles Wilson, his name, indigenous name, um, is, is Coda. Jacamara got it. And so we have to, we have to find that out. And then what we do is to get around that as we get a skin name, but also, um, if we have the language pin in jar, for example, Jara covers an area that's probably the size of Switzerland. Um, and we'll get people from different communities to cross that. So we don't cross over. So we'll get someone say from Buena dad or, or think, which is far over to the east of the desert. And then, uh, to serve a, say, someone from the non-dairy Gillies area, which is on the Western Australia border.
Speaker 2 00:36:12 Oh, okay. So I understand now
Speaker 0 00:36:14 Because you've probably saw my confused face. I was like, what, what conflicts of interest like, um,
Speaker 2 00:36:21 Conflicts, the conflicts
Speaker 0 00:36:23 Of interest that, Hey, I grew up, I was born and raised in a small town. I understand conflicts of what you're talking about. Right. Just, you know, people from the community interpreting for their brothers, sisters, cousins, aunties. Ex-wives exactly. So, um, alright. Now I understand we
Speaker 1 00:36:40 Also have that with the indigenous family tree. Um, so for example, um, if you have a brother, uh, and you're married and you go away, your brother's responsibility is to take over care for your family. So the kids were referred to your brother as dad. Interesting. So, and then your first cousins are essentially considered brother and sister all the way. And then if you have, uh, like a, a nephew, a nephew is, uh, is basically how we would be polite. You know, we've got a family friend that we call uncle and auntie, and then that would be just our friends that considered nephew and niece. Oh. Um, so basically when you get that family tree and
Speaker 2 00:37:26 Yeah. Ever everybody's a
Speaker 0 00:37:27 Cousin or an auntie or an F or a yeah, I used, you can imagine. Sorry. No, I was just gonna say my wife, when we first met she's from Accra, Ghana. Right. And so African culture and, um, Canadian culture, I should say, not African culture. I called out the other day for that, by my wife,
Speaker 2 00:37:47 Uh, tree. Well, Fante, Fante
Speaker 0 00:37:50 Actually, but she can speak to me, her dad's I have a, so man, it's, it's like, like your, your friend from the desert, right. Speaks four languages. Just doesn't even think anything of it. Plus English plus Chinese plus French. Right. But, um, it's like when we first started dating, I was thinking what, like, how I, how many cousins, like, how big is her family? Right. 'cause she, oh, my cousin, my auntie, my blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it took me a while. It's just, you know, this American guy was like, oh, they're not actually, because well, in there, I just say, they're not actually cousins. So they just have a different definition of cousin.
Speaker 1 00:38:26 Exactly. And you can, you can understand if you go into court and the interpreter says, oh, I'll just tell my nephew, you know, that is, and the court goes, hang on a second. What's this all about? And it's like, oh, well actually it's not, you know what I mean? It's like, we have to go through those sorts of little cultural changes. So for supply, we have to be, is it really a son or a cousin? Or is it a polite affiliation? You know, sorry, things
Speaker 2 00:38:53 Have to be clarified. And
Speaker 0 00:38:55 This is beyond language. This is that cultural adaptation that you're talking about, that people don't even think about. I wouldn't think about it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:39:03 And it's fair to assume. Like I wouldn't, if I had a customer call and just say, Hey, look, there's a conflict of interest because they're a family member. Um, I wouldn't get my back up about it because I don't expect them to know that, um,
Speaker 0 00:39:15 One of the worst things, I mean, I can't speak because I don't have personal experience, but I've heard from people who have gone through this and it just can be icky at making family members interpret for family members. It just it's yucky is the best. That's the best word that I can come up with it. It's not so well, you know, we've been doing this now for about 40 minutes. I try to keep these about 45 minutes, but we could, we could keep going, but it is Saturday morning for you. You've got a lawn to mow. Yes. And I've got sleep to do, right? No, no, no. I've got kids waiting downstairs and it's only a matter of time before they come up here and find me, but closing question, closing question after sock. And we haven't, if we're those that have made it this far and are watching this like Lawson and I met today, basically, right.
Speaker 0 00:40:11 This is the first time that we were talking. Um, so we're getting to know each other as well, but I'm fascinated about all the work that you're doing and just the scope of the work that you're doing. And I'm particularly fascinated and, you know, forgive my, my being so forward, but you were very white, right? You are obviously not indigenous. Like, no, I'm not why, why is this, you know, like, why are you white? But like, why is this, like, how, how did you come into this? Um, cause I'm, I'm very interested to understand that,
Speaker 1 00:40:44 Um, I think it's a collection of things. Um, the way that it happened is, uh, I sort of not showed that, but, uh, long story short, there was a, a seven year old kid who was stuck in a psychiatric ward for three months. And, um, I had been trying to get an interpreter through other strange before that, and I know it's business, but the indigenous side is also quite humanitarian in that no one else is clearly actively going out and pursuing this to fix issues that arise in our front door. Um, and I don't understand it. And so I sort of got sucked in with, with having had that experience of, uh, going into communities and just seeing the hardship, seeing the poverty, seeing the neglect, um, seeing social issues that been, um, branded as stereotypes against indigenous people, um, by people who just have never been out there and would understand better, like, um, saying the unemployment and thinking we have to do something about this.
Speaker 1 00:41:48 We have to, um, there's, there's a better way. And so I got sucked into that and when I get sucked into something, I am like a dog with a bone. And so to go from one language to 32 languages from one state to four states, um, to being on a federal level in five and a half years, um, that shows my tenacity and how much I care and just living and breathing with indigenous communities. Um, you get a task, you get a task. Um, and for me, I just think like as a country, we, we have two spheres that are not talking to each other. Uh, we do have the white international Australia and we have indigenous Australia. And I think both sides are so exhausted emotionally from arguing for decades with each other, that they've just sort of gone deaf with one another and what yeah.
Speaker 1 00:42:50 Tell style. Right. And, and so the emotion is being piled on into areas where nothing's going to happen. And in the meantime, I'm thinking if I'm providing an interpreting service and an ability to access languages, why are we not also looking at the, like the history and the culture and how can we make it cohesive? And so my next step is that I've actually designed a rehabilitation program for correctional services, um, to make a generation difference. And so I'm working in, um, I'm in talks with a university and a correctional service, uh, facility, uh, where we want to do a interpreting and translating program, um, in prison. Uh, and we're going to filter the prisoners by which crimes they've committed and talk to our customers on. Would you be happy to have, say someone who hasn't won a seat belt a million times and has may like, like low grade crimes, um, the facilities in the prison will be hardened criminals?
Speaker 1 00:43:52 No, no, unfortunately, um, yeah, that's, that's too far gone, but if we can basically have first-time offenders on petty crimes and we can put them in a classroom of say 12 or 15, we can instill confidence in them. By saying, you can use your language, believe in your language, believe in your culture, um, get them a certificate from a university. So they have education behind them. Um, a sense of pride, a sense of achievement. And then the problem that we have is getting into everybody's in different geographical areas. So when they are repatriated from prison to that local community, those individuals, then we'll be able to, um, all those communities will be able to have trained knowledgeable, um, formalized interpreters in community who can work with whoever comes in. It's not so much about, um, our agency monopolizing on having this scheme to get interpreters. I want all these interpreters to have as many opportunities as possible. So when they go back to the community, um, whoever can say off Joe's back, he got his certificate in interpreting. Um, he's now being advertised on a website. Anyone can access him and pay him for his services. That money goes into the economy. The people around him say what a leader, he is, how he can be re rehabilitated, use his skillset, create employment. And so that's, that's my next, uh, project that I'm
Speaker 2 00:45:19 Currently working on. That's
Speaker 0 00:45:21 The next bone. This dog will be chewing on
Speaker 2 00:45:25 To use your metaphor and
Speaker 0 00:45:28 What, what an amazing cause like, um, Lawson, thank you so much for coming on today. This has been a fascinating conversation, but we gotta go, we gotta do this. Uh, you're welcome to come on. Any, any, any time, because I'm sure we could have 12 more fascinating conversations where this come, came from guys in the comments, Oscar, particularly I see you down here, but my thing's not working. I can't bring you up on, um, on stage, but we've got Oscar quoted hosts in the comments. Autumn Smith. Hi, autumn. How are you? Um, more people to shout out later. Uh, what else? I think we're done. Sorry. I'm trying to outro this, uh, on a Friday, but, um, thank you very much. Um, I need to Nimsy and keep doing what you're doing. Uh, w we will, we will, sir. Um, so for those of you out there still listening once again, this is from Nimsy insights. Uh, we'd like to have these conversations with thought leaders in our industry and from other industries, if that's you, or if you know somebody who would make a great guest for a live stream, it takes very little time to set up. As I mentioned, this is the first time that I've actually talked to Lawson today. Come on in, we'll get you alive. If you got some value to add or a story to tell, and with that one last round of applause here for Lawson as we go out and we'll see you next time, guys,
