Perfecting French While Simplifying it: A new IFE placement in municipal social services with the City of Strasbourg
If IFE students find their internship useful for mastering the complexities of French, a recent student at a new placement with the City of Strasbourg’s Health and Human Services worked on simplifying the French language, for better access to public services.
Typically IFE students find their internship to be a good way to take their command of French or Spanish to the next level. Eileen, a UC Davis anthropology major with IFE in Strasbourg, as an intern with Health and Human Services of the Eurométropole de Strasbourg, however, spent a good deal of time simplifying the French language for better access to public health services by all.
Some background here. Building a connection to Strasbourg’s municipal Health and Human Services Department, IFE is now able to offer high-grade mission-based internships in urban social service and public health delivery. Joining the office of Public Health Support Services for Independent Living, Eileen –- the first student to benefit from this opportunity -- contributed to projects and actions aimed at helping seniors and those with disabilities maintain their independence through facilitated access to social services.
The City of Strasbourg (including the Greater Strasbourg Metropolis) is a hotspot of urban and social innovation. From building one of the first modern tramways in France (extended to neighboring Kehl, Germany) and other green city initiatives to being one of a handful of French cities to seize the opportunity to establish an Advisory Council of Foreign Residents as soon as this possibility was signed into law, city government in Strasbourg is a stimulating place to work.
More recently Strasbourg has taken the lead on a national initiative to augment the independence of those requiring assistance (due to age, disability, immigrant status, etc.). An interesting example has been the City’s impetus to apply the movement towards simplifying French to the language of Strasbourg’s public services. The EU Easy-to-Read program – including a logo to identify those public documents that have been “translated” into non-jargon, simple language – is being adopted in France. The cost, however, of official, approved, Easy-to-Read translation is prohibitive for all of the user documentation for Strasbourg’s social services, and the City has decided to implement its own approach to simplifying administrative French.
Intrigued by this project, Eileen chose to explore it for her IFE field research paper, analyzing the techniques and rules the city of Strasbourg has elaborated for translating administrative documents into simplified French, conducting qualitative interviews and on-the-ground observation (as part of her internship duties) of the impact of simplified French and, in conclusion, formulating some recommendations for further development of this tool for four major groups: disabled, aging, non-French speaking, and those suffering varying degrees of illiteracy. Or simply, perhaps, IFE student interns navigating the complexities of professional involvement in another language!
The quality of Eileen’s contribution to her host organization also helps build good relations between IFE and Health and Human Services of the City of Strasbourg, potentially a locus of a variety of public health and urban policy internships, for the benefit of future IFE students and, hopefully, in small ways, the City of Strasbourg.