Living in West Lothian Advice Website Launched

Dec 10 2009 West Lothian Courier

A NEW online information resource has been launched to mark West Lothian Diversity Week.

Jointly funded and developed by West Lothian Council and Oatridge College, it was unveiled during the Multi-Cultural Event held in Broxburn’s Strathbrock Centre.

The new Living in West Lothian advice site is a bilingual digital resource that will provide essential information and advice for those living in West Lothian.

With English and Polish sections, it incorporates a range of content, including informative videos, location maps and guidance notes, photographs, contact numbers and supporting text, to provide everything anyone living in the county could need.

Oatridge lecturer Duncan MacKay explained: “It has been a big job creating the resource, with over 30 minutes of video, countless pictures, maps and text elements, then doubling all the work to translate and present every element in Polish too.

“The resource finds its roots in a set of printed bilingual English/Polish information leaflets published by West Lothian Council last year.”

To mark the launch, West Lothian-based Agnieska Pawlak, an education worker who helped with both the resource’s script checking and the quality control of the language recording was at the Multi- Cultural Event.

She also had the task of directing a choral group of teenage Polish girls, who sang traditional songs on stage.

And West Lothian’s ethnic minority development worker, Caroline Spence, also co-ordinated events for diversity week.

Attending the event on behalf of the NHS Lothian Minority Ethnic Health Inclusion Project (MEHIP) was Fulmaya Harris, who was delighted with both the event and the resource itself.

Fulmaya said: “It is really important to give people as many ways of accessing information as possible, it will be great for Polish and English speakers.”

The resource will soon be available for general access on line.