However, they must provide their own printing and distribution of materials. We knew that this community needed help and we decided it would be best to go with the translation program. It's the first of its kind in the city of New York. Organizations that have called on the program's services include the Queens Museum of Art, the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, the Queens Borough Public Library, the Board of Education and the Fire Department. The City University of New York, of which Queens College is a part, has had documents translated by the program.
Hospitals also call on the translation service.
The state Health Department has established a threshold language requirement. Hospitals are required to have documents translated into threshold languages. Hong Wu said the program's three or four translators work for small or no fees because they want to serve their community. Madhulika Khandelwal, who translates documents into Hindi for the Indian community, said many people have the misconception that the Asian American community speaks English. We do translations for organizations which will serve their needs.