Peterborough City Council produces translation videos to keep communities safe in coronavirus pandemic

The council, alongside Cambridgeshire County Council, have been trying to publicise the Government’s Stay Home, Save Lives message to residents.

However, they identified that there was a problem reaching some people with this message who may not have understood the important public health messages, either because they cannot read or understand English or because they cannot access translations.

Video blogs have now been produced covering 29 different languages so far, including Eastern European languages such as Polish, Lithuanian and Asian languages including Urdu and Gujrati – with more being added every day. The videos are available on the council’s social media channels, websites and on YouTube.

The videos have seen councillors and community leaders reading the translations.

The videos are now being shared by Cambridgeshire police as they work across the county to keep people safe.

Superintendent Laura Hunt, at Cambridgeshire Constabulary, said: “Working with our diverse communities to make sure they understand the very important ‘stay at home’ message is a critical part of our work at the moment. So the translation videos produced by the city and county council will prove very useful for police officers when they come across people who struggle to understand the messages in English.

“Our policing style is built on consent and having a positive relationship with the community. Therefore, enforcement will be the last resort and we will follow the four-step principles of Engage, Explain, Encourage, Enforce, which we hope will mean we only very rarely have to move to the adoption of an enforcement approach.

“We will continue to work closely with the councils and all our partners to ensure as many people as possible stay at home.”