The Multikulti website aims to support citizenship through the delivery of culturally appropriate and accurately translated information in the following areas of welfare law — debt, employment, health, housing, immigration and welfare benefits. We are currently translating material in: Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Farsi, French, Gujerati, Somali, Spanish and Turkish. For more information on our choice of languages please see our Multikulti Language Choice page.

The project is managed by Lasa (London Advice Service Alliance) with the support of:

The Multikulti Editorial Group — which is responsible for commissioning and editing content for the website in accordance with established selection criteria; - i.e. the quality of the end product and its relevance to individual communities.

What kind of information would you like to see on the Multikulti site? Let us know through our contact form.

The translators — translations will be conducted by bi-lingual advisers or by community translators who, as well as being competent translators, also understand the client needs.

The Multikulti User Group — which is responsible for providing feedback to the Project Team on how the digitised material is experienced by the agencies and the members of the public. The User Group works with the project team to identify what the project should do to ensure that agencies get the best out of Multikulti.

Lasa's Multikulti project has been funded by the New Opportunities Fund, a National Lottery good cause distributor, through the Fund’s nof-digitise programme to provide information and learning materials in community languages. The new scheme builds on a pilot project we've been running for the last year.

The idea for the project originally came from community groups in Haringey, North London. They were keen to use the internet to get good-quality information to service users whose first language was not English. Using a website would enable them to keep the information up-to-date, and avoid duplication of effort as different agencies provided their own translated material.

For further information about the project, please contact us or phone Njomeza Kartallozi on 020 7247 7226.

Multikulti Project, Lasa, Universal House, 88/94 Wentworth Street, London, E1 7SA

Grant awards from the New Opportunities Fund’s £50 million nof-digitise programme were announced last year. The programme is helping to put information that supports lifelong learning into digitised form. The nof-digitise grant awardees are developing learning materials covering a wide range of topics including arts, science, history, geography, citizenship and community information for Internet access. Details on www.nof-digitise.org.

The New Opportunities Fund distributes National Lottery money to health, education and environment projects across the UK with a particular focus on disadvantage and improving quality of life. The Fund supports sustainable projects that will: improve the quality of life of people throughout the UK; address the needs of those who are most disadvantaged in society; encourage community participation; and complement relevant local and national strategies and programmes. For information on lottery funding opportunities across the UK contact: www.lotterygoodcauses.org.uk Telephone: 0845 275 0000. Textphone: 0845 275 0022