International Mother Language Day is a worldwide annual observance held on 21 February to promote awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and to promote multilingualism.

The first episode of Season 3 is a special edition of the Conversations Podcast where we celebrate UNESCO's International Mother Language Day in collaboration with NAATI's Indigenous Interpreting Project.

In this episode, Lavinia Heffernan from the NAATI Indigenous Interpreting Project joins Fatih as co-host. The main aim of the project is to get as many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander language interpreters certified as possible.


Guest Bio:

Lavinia is a Luritja-Pintupi woman from a small community three hours northwest of Alice Springs called Papunya. Papunya is where she spent her early years speaking Luritja-Pintupi and learning and living her culture.

Both of Lavinia’s parents were linguists, and she was fortunate to observe and learn from her parents who did translating and interpreting work, thinking, ‘Wow, I want to be able to do what my parents do one day’.

Lavinia is a NAATI certified Luritja-Pintupi interpreter. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in General Studies in Education from the Queensland University of Technology. She is currently working as a Project Officer at NAATI on the Indigenous Interpreting Project.

Your interest and support are greatly appreciated and we hope you will join us for our events throughout 2022 and onwards.

Don’t forget to visit our training website for more information and PD opportunities:
https://www.conversations-interpretingandtranslating.com.au