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The Neighbourhood Justice Centre (NJC) embarked on a collaborative journey with Ethnolink to raise awareness about family violence amongst community members from non-English speaking backgrounds who have lower English proficiency, and direct them to support services who those may be experiencing family violence. The objective was clear: to create impactful, multilingual audiovisual infographics that would resonate deeply with Arabic, Vietnamese, Tigrinya, Somali, and Oromo speakers. The driving force behind this initiative was a co-design approach that ensured cultural relevance and effective communication.
The Neighbourhood Justice Centre specialises in delivering customised justice services to enhance public safety. The Centre's approach includes court proceedings, support services, and active community engagement. Efforts encompass rehabilitating individuals involved in criminal activities, aiding victim recovery, and restoring affected areas. By collaborating closely with those most impacted by criminal actions, the Centre connects individuals to transformative treatment and support services through its court, collaboratively develops practical and sustainable solutions to crime-related issues alongside residents and services, and fosters a secure and welcoming hub for community activities, information, and assistance.
There's always a challenge in creating informative resources regarding sensitive topics such as family violence and it's important to understand communication preferences and the particular sensitivities of the multicultural target audience we were working with. As native language literacy levels were relatively low amongst the population for the languages chosen for translation, careful consideration and innovation was needed to develop an effective solution. Accessibility of the resources was also critical, whereby the user must be able to privately access this information with simple and clear navigation tools to operate the resources.
As part of the co-design process, Ethnolink conducted a series of one on one phone consultations with women who were native speakers of the target languages to understanding the unique cultural contexts, sensitivities, and communication preferences of their community. This co-design process was instrumental for shaping the content and design of the infographics. Ultimately, we created 2 audio infographics on the topics of ‘What is family violence?’ and 'If you or someone you know is experiencing family violence, what can you do?'. Key design features of the infographics include universally recognised icons as visual aids, buttons to activate embedded audio for each section of the infographics, and quick exit buttons for privacy and safety.
The multilingual audio infographics have now been delivered NJC to share across their channels, community networks and stakeholders. Their reach extended far beyond language barriers, thanks to the co-design process that instilled cultural relevance and authenticity. The Neighbourhood Justice Centre's collaborative initiative with Ethnolink stands as a testament to the power of community engagement in crafting effective multilingual resources. Through co-design, we harnessed the insights of Arabic, Vietnamese, Tigrinya, Somali, and Oromo speakers to create 2 impactful audio infographics and a bi-lingual flyer, that empower communities to better understand family violence and access support.
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