Philadelphia adds Spanish, Simplified Chinese translations to website
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Nasheli Ortiz González is the executive director of Taller Puertorriqueño, an arts organization in North Philadelphia East.
Every two weeks, her team logs onto phila.gov to request payment for running after several school programs, where children draw and paint.
"When we have kids here, we need to send an invoice to the city to say how many kids we served," she said.
Sending an invoice used to take longer because many members of her team are still learning English.
But now the process is easier because the city of Philadelphia has a Spanish version of its website.
There's also a Simplified Chinese version.
"You are cutting a whole step in a process of access. You don't need to think twice and you don't need to doubt when you are talking your native language," Ortiz González said.
For years, the city relied on a Google plug-in to give a free translation of its website into dozens of other languages, but the translations aren't always accurate.
Maria Giraldo Gallo, director of language access programs, says the city spent almost half a million dollars for a human translation to improve quality.
"It feels really fulfilling to be part of this project, with so many hands involved. I'm serving the community," Giraldo Gallo said.
People use phila.gov for many things, like paying a water bill, requesting a photo ID, filing taxes and registering a business.
Karissa Demi, the city's director of software engineering, says the city hired a contractor to do the translation, which went live on March 29.
"It was a large task. We have about 3,500 pages that we translated," Demi said.
The work's not done yet. The city is aiming to translate its website to seven more languages by July.
That includes Russian, Portuguese, French, Haitian Creole, Arabic, Swahili and Vietnamese.
