by: Engagement Team members Alanna Quinn and Summer Alkarmi
MCIS Language Solutions has celebrated its 30th anniversary last year. As an organization whose mission is to improve access to critical information and services through high quality language solutions, our goals are rooted in strengthening communities all across Canada.
On Monday, Feb. 3, three members of our team attended a networking event to announce a new business partnership. This engaging networking event took place in the City of Welland, home to one of the largest Francophone communities in Southern Ontario. In hopes to provide superior language services, MCIS has built a strategic bilingual partnership with Vice Versa to highlight the importance of Canada’s francophone community and its preservation.
Vice Versa is a social enterprise operated by the Société Économique de l’Ontario, offers high quality professional translation and simultaneous interpretation services in both official languages. Société Économique de l’Ontario engages all of the Francophone and bilingual community’s stakeholders in fostering the prosperity of Ontario and Canada. SÉO takes an innovative approach to economic development, entrepreneurship, employability and immigration.
Yvette, the coordinator of this networking opportunity, is the Business Development Manager for the Société Économique de l’Ontario. The coordination of the event was so intuitive of partners’ business interests and facilitated an opportunity for connecting with like-minded organizations.
Almost all participants were bilingual, and presentations were held in both official languages. The mayor of Welland, Frank Campion, offered the venue and warmly welcomed all participants in an opening speech that displayed Welland’s support for the Francophone community. Prior to the presentations, partnering organizations enjoyed food provided by Blue Star Restaurant which kept people networking right beside their plates.
MCIS is grateful for the opportunity set up by Yvette to formally introduce our partnership with Vice Versa and also engage with like-minded organizations. To better support the Francophone community, MCIS offered free Community Language Interpreter Training to one of the attending members at the event. We look forward to growing this partnership and continuing to support the Francophone community.