Human Rights & Sustainability: Equitable Language Access

At its core, sustainability isn’t just about environmental health—it’s also about fostering systems that uphold the rights, dignity, and well-being of all people. This Human Rights Day, we celebrate the transformative work of our USDN network members to create resilient cities and communities where everyone, regardless of background, language, or identity, has access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive.

Read below about the impactful work of USDN members Ita Meno, Project and Equity Analyst at Burlington Electric Department in Burlington, VT, and Brenda Perez, Equity and Engagement Program Analyst at the Government of the District of Columbia in Washington, D.C. Ita and Brenda share their vital efforts to advance equitable language access and its ties to human rights, civic participation, and freedom of expression in their communities.

Ita Meno - Project and Equity Analyst - Burlington Electric Department - Burlington, VT

Burlington Electric Department is Vermont’s largest municipally owned electric utility, serving more than 19,000 customers in Burlington and the Burlington International Airport. We are a city of approximately 45,000 residents, 60 percent of the households are rentals, and 11 percent of total households without English-speaking adults.

We believe in emphasizing the importance of language access. It creates equitable services and governance. To truly support health, safety, accessibility, accountability and self-determination, we need to ensure that all community members – regardless of the languages they speak – can access critical information and participate meaningfully.  

We enlist the support of trusted messengers from the community – those identified by the community, not by us – to partner with our organization. Nothing can replace the immense value of authentic human relationships.

USDN has offered me multiple platforms to talk about the importance of language access. Most recently, at the Annual Meeting in Minneapolis, I was able to partner with the Cities of Denver and San Luis Obispo (shoutout to Chelsea and Lucia) to offer a soup-to-nuts workshop on Storytelling and Outreach that included the value of listening, how to use stories from the community to shape our communications, how to define success and how to curate messages in every day language.

Obliging language access within your organization can mean the difference between life and death – or the difference between costly and more affordable outcomes. Language access prioritizes universal understanding of life saving instructions, outage notices, warnings, public safety and health information.

Language Access is an important tool in equity. It ensures that people for whom English is not their first language (or even their sixth) can receive information. It supports the inclusion of all our neighbors by making sure critical information is deliverable. It preserves dignity. Language access affirms a freedom of expression and culture in a way that prevents marginalization and encourages belonging and civic participation.

Brenda Perez - Equity and Engagement Program Analyst - Government of the District of Columbia - Washington D.C.

Language justice is deeply meaningful to me because, in my junior year of high school, I learned about the DC Language Access Act, which mandates that DC government agencies provide residents with information in their preferred language. Learning about this law changed my life because it gave me a tool to advocate for resources for myself, my family, and my community.

This law is an essential resource for DC where 14 percent of the population are immigrants. Especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when immigrant communities were among the hardest hit. In addition to delays in receiving critical information in their languages, immigrant communities also faced heightened food insecurity and limited access to mental health services. In response, USDN supported a series of Action and Healing circles for DC immigrant communities through the COVID-19 Rapid Response grants in 2019. These circles, facilitated by Movement Matters with the support of the DC Department of Energy and Environment, provided a space for immigrant women who had lost their jobs to come together in a community garden to organize and advocate for their families' rights.

These community leaders, who were already on the frontlines of change, sought a safe space to mourn, heal, build resilience, care for themselves, and develop their public speaking skills. Language justice is essential to human rights, as access to information—particularly during crises—can be a matter of life or death. Everyone deserves access to life-saving information in their preferred language, regardless of their background or resources.