Multilingual Manchester is one of two projects to receive an Honorable Mention, among a shortlist of projects ranked as top five in the world, for this year’s MacJannet Prize.

The Prize recognises exceptional student community engagement initiatives, and is awarded by the Talloires Network, an international association of institutions committed to strengthening the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education.

Multilingual Manchester’s Student Volunteer Scheme engages students from all programmes across the University. It promotes awareness of language diversity across the Manchester city-region. It supports local institutions and communities in responding to language needs, fostering cultural and language heritage, and harnessing language skills.

The students involved respond to real-world problems, supporting health, police, education and other sectors of society to outreach to minority and immigrant communities. This year, Multilingual Manchester student volunteers helped organise the Levenshulme Language Days as well as interactive events in Manchester’s secondary schools. They created an information video for parents and speech therapists on child bilingualism, helped Greater Manchester Police re-draft letters to victims of crime, and helped record patient experience from speakers of languages other then English at Central Manchester Hospitals. They held weekly English conversation sessions for new arrivals at the Chrysalis Centre in Moss Side, and launched the University’s very first teaching and research app, LinguaSnapp, which documents the city’s multilingual signs.

More information can be found on the Multilingual Manchester website.