City of Covington employees are soon to embark on an 8-week Spanish course to promote inclusion and diversity.
An initiative from the City of Covington’s Human Resources Department, Spanish is being taught to staff by Fares da Silva, president of Silva Languages LLC, to help promote diversity, equality and inclusion amongst city employees and citizens.
The course is intended to make it so that the staff is reading and speaking Spanish comfortably over the course of two months. Being that Covington’s population is 7% Hispanic, staff have vocalized the need for a more inclusive environment with tools to better facilitate communication between the city its population.
“Providing a more inclusive environment for our diverse city is something I value, and I hope that it helps those communities to feel valued as well,” said Elizabeth Glass, executive assistant to the city manager. “I help answer phones and assist with permitting of various sorts, and I appreciate that I will have more tools to assist.”
John Hammons, the city’s Community Development Block Grant Programs coordinator, said language barriers can shut out citizens from programs that they are entitled to.
“Everyone should feel comfortable in City Hall,” Hammons said. “Spanish is the principal language outside of English that we see, and it shouldn’t be just one or two people at the City who are able to communicate with a large section of our populace.”
