The plight of a frightened young woman undergoing a hysterectomy in a Brighton hospital in 1994 led to the birth of the Sussex Interpreting Service (SIS). Unable to speak English, she had no idea what was going on around her.
SIS started life as the Brighton, Hove and Lewes Interpreting Service in response to her situation and that of others facing language barriers. The need for its work was swiftly demonstrated.
Five years of rapid growth from about 50 to 200 interpreting sessions a month saw its role extend across the county and the name change.
Today SIS delivers 1,700 interpreting sessions every month and is a leader among the UK not-for-profit organisations working in this field.
Arran Evans, who stood down as SIS co-director on Friday (19 June), said: “Working with highly skilled community interpreters, we ensure refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants can access health and social care across Sussex.”
Its work reflects the true spirit of Brighton and Hove which was reflected in last weekend’s counter-demonstration in the city.
Mr Evans founded the service with Shahreen Shebli who remains as director. He brought experience to the project from the Single Homeless Project where he was responsible for leading refugee support and working with interpreters.
She had previously volunteered as an interpreter in her own BAME community where she had first-hand experience of the challenges faced by non-English speaking communities.
From the outset SIS supported a wide range of services, including physical and mental health, social care, housing, benefits, finance, learning and employment. Since 1994 it has delivered more than 300,000 interpreting sessions.
It has not all been plain sailing. SIS faced its biggest test during the 2020-21 covid pandemic lockdown. Unable to deliver face-to face-sessions, it reshaped its on-line work almost overnight to offer remote interpreting and developed extensive translated covid information resources.
It provided covid updates, arranged priority vaccinations for linguists and sent targeted translated SMS messages to service users, explaining where they could be vaccinated.
The pandemic experience helps the service cope with the growing impact of global conflict. 2024-25 was a record year with an increase of 10 per cent in the work. 21,548 interpreting sessions were provided for 6,198 displaced refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in 50 languages, among them Arabic, Polish, Farsi, Russian and Ukrainian.
A team of more than 150 self-employed community interpreters works with SIS to provide the service, which includes 24-hour support to meet emergencies, principally in A&E and maternity and mental health services. During 2024-25, 222 emergency sessions in 30 languages accounted for 297 vital hours of work.
Bilingual volunteers and social prescribers help service users overcome cultural and language isolation through regular contact.
Community interpreter events are held across Sussex to strengthen ties with local communities, raise awareness of interpreting services and offer clear guidance on how to enrol with SIS as a community interpreter.
Surrey and Sussex Integrated Care Board and Brighton and Hove City Council are among the organisation’s funders. The city council funded a support programme for Ukrainian refugees which involved interpreters and befrienders.
