By Staff Reports
(Hawaii)– A free event highlighting how being bilingual can lead to increased job opportunities will be held at the UH Mānoa campus on Wednesday, March 28, from 8:45 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Campus Center Ballroom.
Multilingual Career Development Day will feature keynote speakers, discussions, presentations, workshop activities and a myriad of other interactions addressing multi-language skills. Taking part in a career fair will be employers from Hawaiian Airlines, Bloomingdales, JTB, Booz Allen Hamilton, the Hawai‘i Department of Education, state Judiciary and U.S. Air Force.
The event is sponsored by the Hawai’i Language Roadmap Initiative, which is comprised of representatives from government, education, industry, military and other sectors that promote the benefits of and need for bilingual speakers.
The Roadmap is directed by Dina Yoshimi, an associate professor of Japanese, which is a part of East Asian Languages and Literature in the College of Languages, Linguistics and Literature.
“I’ve had hundreds of conversations with people throughout the state and, to no surprise, Hawai‘i has a great number of bilingual speakers and potential speakers,” she said. “With the Roadmap’s efforts, there will be many more to meet the state’s growing need.”
Yoshimi works with employers, employees, students of all levels and leaders at the DOE and within the UH system to assess bilingualism demand, and to develop bilingual speakers. She helped advocate for and establish the DOE’s Seal of Biliteracy, which high school students can earn after demonstrating their proficiencies in second languages.
For more information, contact Yoshimi at roadmap@hawaii.edu or (808) 956-2077.