Protection Interpreter & Language Access Consultant

About the role

Provide verbatim, first‑person consecutive interpretation during social work intake, medical triage, legal aid sessions, and police/DCI interviews. Maintain absolute linguistic neutrality, refraining from summarising, filtering, judging, or offering personal advice to the victim. The role supports refugees and asylum‑seekers by ensuring accurate communication across legal, medical and protection services.

Key responsibilities

• Deliver trauma‑informed, verbatim interpretation for intake, medical, legal and police interviews, ensuring linguistic neutrality.
• Translate critical shelter documents, consent forms, emergency signs and rights notifications between English/Swahili and Amharic, Oromo, Tigrinya or Somali.
• Assist with translation of foreign identity papers, travel documents, and written statements needed for legal and repatriation processes.
• Provide non‑intrusive cultural context to the social work team regarding idioms, regional nuances or social taboos.
• Sign and adhere to the programme’s Code of Ethics, NDA and Kenya’s Data Protection Act, and participate in pre‑ and post‑session briefings.

Required profile

• Vetted and certified interpreter with at least 12 months of relevant experience.
• Willingness to comply with confidentiality, safeguarding policies and to attend trauma briefings and debriefings.