When she was only six years old, Maria Vertkin had to become the voice of her Russian Jewish family. She was the one who spoke English the best.

She remembers having to translate medical information for her parents — an enormous, potentially dangerous responsibility for someone so young. In hospitals and clinics, one word can be the difference between life and death. When that word is in a language the patient doesn't speak, trained interpreters need to fill in the gap.

"If you're a kid in an immigrant family, you are the de facto interpreter and translator," Vertkin tells Mashable. "Because kids learn so much faster, and acculturate so much faster."

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Even that young, Vertkin understood the link between language and success. As Jews facing second-class citizenship and economic hardship in Russia, she and her parents uprooted for a better life in Israel and then the U.S., giving up the culture and language they always knew.

That's why Vertkin launched Found in Translation, a social enterprise that offers free medical interpreter certificates and job placement to low-income, bilingual women in the greater Boston, Massachusetts area.

The mission is twofold — to break down language barriers in health care, while also tackling poverty and homelessness, two issues that affect women (especially women of color) disproportionately.

"We help them take their language skills and turn them into something that's marketable in the workforce, which can get them out of poverty permanently," says Vertkin, who also acts as Found in Translation's executive director.

A life on the fringes

She knows it firsthand; not only is she a first-generation immigrant from a low-income family, Vertkin was even homeless for a period while she was in high school — a time she prefers not to give many details about. So, in addition to the textbook knowledge she gained as a social worker, she also has a personal, intuitive understanding of the obstacles these women face.

"There are so many immigrants and so much bilingual talent in poor communities, [but] things get in the way of them succeeding in climbing out of poverty. [I wanted to] build a program that capitalizes on those strengths and addresses those weaknesses," she says.

Found in Translation offers bilingual women a course that takes 14 hours a week for 14 weeks to teach them the skills that get them hospital work — one of the best-earning industries available — in a short amount of time. The women are trained in what Vertkin calls the "core competencies of interpreting" — modes of interpretation, code of conduct, standards of practice, ethics, the complexities of the health care system. They also learn anatomy, physiology and thousands of medical terms in both English and their native language. They also receive general skill training, such as financial literacy and how to build out a resume.

After the 14 weeks are up and the final exam is over, that's when the real work begins. Getting out of poverty and homelessness isn't as easy as earning a certificate, Vertkin says. The organization places the women with local agencies (which gives them the experience needed for jobs at hospitals), and is also an employer of interpreters itself.

Class of 2014 is 81% employed & their wages increased 62% in only 3 months. http://t.co/WtWPSUpQmR #GivingTuesday pic.twitter.com/vJHANKdaaW — Found in Translation (@Found1nt) December 2, 2014

A program like Found in Translation has an understandably competitive selection process, designed to find women who are fluent in English and at least one other language, as well as highly motivated and with the people skills to be good interpreters. Because it offers free training and helps with child care and transportation, hundreds of women apply online for the opportunity; the most recent class saw 380 applicants, but the program currently accommodates only 35 spots in the class.

Professional medical interpreters, doctors and nurses are among those who teach these various skills. As interpreters, the program's graduates won't be diagnosing or giving medical opinions, but they need to know the information well enough so patients can understand.

Nurse practitioner Peggy Andreas is back for a fourth year! Tonight she is covering the Latin and Greek roots of medical... Posted by Found in Translation on Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Skills in demand

It doesn't hurt that there's a burgeoning market for interpreters.

Interpretation is one of the fastest-growing professions in the U.S. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median interpreter salary in the U.S. is $43,590; in Massachusetts it's $58,990. Although income may not come in the form of a fixed salary during an interpreter's first few years, these women still earn wages they didn't have access to before.

"They go back to their communities as interpreters, and are able to help patients access vital medical care that can even be life-saving," Vertkin says.

Women in the Found in Translation class study an anatomical model.

This is especially important in urban areas with large immigrant populations. Boston, for example, accounts for 17.1% of Massachusetts' immigrant population, and 16.4% of the state's immigrant households, according to 2009 data.

In New York, the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) serves 1.4 million people per year — many from culturally, ethnically and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Matilde Roman, senior director of the HHC Office of Culturally & Linguistically Appropriate Services, says it offers language services 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 11 hospitals, six diagnostic treatment centers, four nursing homes and more than 70 community clinics across New York's five boroughs.

"Nearly 40% of all New Yorkers were born outside New York," Roman tells Mashable. "When you add the children, it's about 60% of 8.4 million ... We always have a need for language services. Culturally competent care is really at the core of what we do."

HHC works with vendors to provide both in-person and over-the-phone interpreter services, and also has its own selective training process for medical interpreters. In 2014, HHC provided more than 10 million minutes of interpreter services across its various facilities. Roman also explains that these types of services are required at all health institutions through federal non-discriminatory regulations, as well as state and local policies.

"Medical interpreting is a very finite skill set. Not only do you need to have competency or language proficiency in a target language and in English, but you also have to have a level of competency in medical terminology and ethics," Roman says.

Although she learned of Found in Translation through Mashable, Roman says it sounds like a novel approach, as long as the women are held to the very high standards the industry requires.

The Found in Translation graduating class of 2014.

Right now, Found in Translation is mostly philanthropically funded, which Vertkin admits can be unnervingly unpredictable.

"It's huge sums of money that may or may not come in, and your financial projections' worst case scenario and best case scenario are hundreds of thousands of dollars apart. That's scary ... But with offering interpreter services, and knowing the market ... that's a much steadier stream of funding," she says.

The goal is to be completely self-sustaining within three to five years, using its interpreter services to fund the certificate program without relying on grants and donations. There's also great potential to scale: People in neighboring towns, other states, and places as far as the UK and Kenya have called Vertkin to see how they might work with the organization. While they're not there yet, Vertkin sees the opportunity to expand in the future, whether it's setting up new locations or consulting others on adopting the model she created.

In the meantime, Found in Translation is focusing on the women in the program, and ensuring each of them can find work in the field.

"Poor communities are rich in bilingual talent, and this is a skill the mainstream community is desperate for," Vertkin says. "To be able to identify that, and identify the people who have this skill to transition out of poverty, is a really unique thing."