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Our Founder & CEO
Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, Ana Soler moved to the United States at the age of 14 and experienced the struggles of adjusting to a new culture, language, school system and way of life. As her family’s “official” interpreter, Ana began to see the barriers that immigrant and refugee families had to face on a daily basis and made a conscious decision to promote cultural awareness and language access. Ana completed her degree in Social Work at Georgia State University, her Master’s Degree in Public Health at Emory University, and is a Ph.D. in Special Education student at the University of Georgia. Her dissertation will focus on the impact of translators and spoken language interpreters on family engagement, and the development of a national certification test for spoken language interpreters in education.
For over a decade, Ana worked with the largest school district in Georgia as the Language Services and Parent Outreach Coordinator, developing, implementing and evaluating professional development opportunities for multilingual personnel, as well as discovering endless opportunities to engage multilingual families in their children’s education. Ana has authored interpreter training curricula nationally including the Intercultural Parent and Youth Leadership Program, the Interpretation Academy for Bilingual High School Students, the Arkansas Interpreter in Education Credential Training, a 40-hour course for medical interpreters, and online courses for UGA, including the Professional Interpreter in Education Certificate course and the Professional Interpreter in Special Education Certificate course. Ana hopes to continue identifying ways to highlight the cultural wealth of multilingual families while supporting schools to strengthen cultural and linguistic bridges.
From Our Clients:
"The training has given me direction as to the procedures for interpretation and translation in the special education setting...very important."
"I will use this workshop to build healthy relationships with my English Learner parents."
"This workshop helped me to be aware of the different roles an interpreter has and the standards to follow. The information is very useful to me since I do a lot of interpretation!"
"I am an experienced medical interpreter and learned so much about the standards of practice for educational interpreters. I am humbled!"
"Your training has further enlightened my cultural awareness to better assist my parents and students."
"As a result of this workshop, I intend to be more sensitive when communicating with English Learner families."
"Thank you for your participation (again!) in the “Becoming a Physician Assistant” course and your “Multicultural Issues in Health” session for our students. Once again, you did a great job leading this important topic for our students as they develop an awareness of cultural factors in healthcare."
"The presentation was a breath of fresh air and should also be offered to all faculty and staff."
"Very insightful and important information about the differences between medical and educational interpretation."
"The information shared about school interpretation is crucial for medical & legal interpreters to know. I have more respect for school interpreters now, thanks to you"
"Thank you for sharing your insight and experience as we develop professional learning opportunities for interpreters in early childhood education."