Today we’d like to introduce you to Omari Jeremiah
Omari, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My journey into language access began when I graduated from college and started working as an ESOL Paraeducator in Baltimore City Public Schools. In that role, part of my duties consisted of providing resources for immigrant families and interpreting for them ( between English and Spanish). However, I quickly learned that there is more to interpreting than just knowing 2 languages and I felt that I needed more training into how I can professionally work as an interpreter. I later completed a 40-hour community interpreter training course through Cross Cultural Communications and I learned so much about what it really looks like to be a language interpreter. I also realized that many families I worked with did not recieve professional interpretation services. Upon further research, I learned that this is a national issue. Across the United States, people that are Limited English Proficient (LEP) do not recieve the same quality of service ( whether it be medical, educational, or legal services) due to language barriers. With this knowledge I later took a position in a high school in which I was in charge of providing resources for immigrant families as well. It occured to me while I was working there that there are so many talented bilingual students that would be great candidates for interpreter training. With that thought in mind, I decided to become an interpreter trainer and train a group of 15 bilingual high school students to become interpreters. 13/15 students completed the program and were able to work anywhere in the United States as a professional interpreter. Because there is such a huge need for trained interpreters to address language barriers, I chose to create an organization focused on training high school students to become professional interpreters. The training program thus far has had huge successes and has been well recieved in the high schools we currently partner with in Baltimore City. At this time, Next Generation Language Access partners with Patterson High School, Ben Franklin High School, and Digital Harbor High School. Our work has provided employment oppurtunities for bilingual high school students and has helped to ensure that everyone, regardless of the language they speak, can attain the services they need to be improve their quality of life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has certaintly not been a smooth road starting my own buisness. When the buisness started, there was little money to pay for our buisness expenses and the buisness was volunteer-based. There were also a lot of challenges finding the best candidate for the staffing positions we had. Funding and staffing continue to be a challenge but we have grown to be able to pay individuals for the work they do in Next Generation Language Access as well as accumulate grant funding to continue our work in Baltimore City.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
The mission of Next Generation Language Access is to empower local communities through language. We do this by training high school students to become professional interpreters to reduce language barriers in Baltirmore City as well as provide a meaningful career for a recently graduated 1st or 2nd generation immigrant student. We are known for providing this interpreter training program because we are the only organization in the United States that provides professional interpreter training to high school students. We are proud of this training because our students have gone on to achieve feats such as earning $41 an hour as an interpreter, being named interpreter of the month by a large interpretation company, and gaining employment positions in various companies in Baltimore City. We also provide language learning classes for adults that want to improve their conversation skills to communicate with the members of the community that they interact with. We provide these classes for working professionals as well as parents that are connected to the schools we partner with.
How do you think about happiness?
The biggest sense of fulfillment I get is when someone is able to reach their highest potential. It is so inspring to me to see how far we can go when we are given the supports and tools to suceed in life. That is the reason that I work everyday in Next Generation Language Access because each day we work to create spaces where our students, parents, and communities are given the oppurtunity to reach their highest potential.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.nextgenerationlanguages.org
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nextgenerationlanguageacce9847
