Beyond Admirable

The measure of a society can be assessed in the care it gives to support those who require especial notice. And sometimes it is not only government agencies who come to the rescue of those whose social status requires notice and assistance. There are those relatively rare individuals within society whose compassionate concern moves them to act on behalf of those in need. They take the time, use their energy and all resources at their disposal to advance causes that benefit the hapless.

So, aside from institutional initiatives that recognize the need to give especial emphasis on tending to social services provision to those that require them, there are the individuals who go out of their way, changing the focus of their own lives to improve that of others who are strangers to them, but clearly in need of help. An Ottawa woman, now 80 years of age, is one such individual who committed herself to improve others' lives.

The irrepressible Bryna Monson, 80, of Languages of Life. She was one of the 60 recipients this week of the Diamond Jubilee Medal for community service. Photograph by: Bruno Schlumberger, The Ottawa Citizen,

This no-nonsense, plain-spoken woman with an ironic, dry sense of humour has made herself well known to those within the area who could be useful to her vision of reaching out to people whose language skills are deficient enough to hamper them in seeking services available to everyone, but difficult for them to attain because they are unable to adequately communicate their needs.

And that would most certainly include visitors to the area who fall ill and cannot give medical details that would help health professionals look after them properly.

She was just recently recognized for the extent of her community-building and society-improving efforts on behalf of people who are unable to speak the majority language and as a result would be ill served, without her organization and administration of a wide-ranging web of volunteer language translators. She was recognized on the occasion of celebrations around the Queen's Jubilee Year, with a Diamond Jubilee medal.

She is the founder of a round-the-clock translation service, named Languages of Life Inc., to aid individuals unable to communicate adequately in French or English while dealing with doctors, police officers, child-welfare authorities, insurance agents, or any number of other needs to communicate for the purpose of attaining service or explaining needs.

She is clearly not someone to be trifled with, a determined woman who, seeing an unaddressed need, addressed it.

Even at her advanced age, it is clear she is still a stunning beauty. Most women who were born as she was, socially and financially privileged, move in social circles that engage in philanthropy at a remove. Bryna Monson got personally involved, recruiting volunteers more than willing to use their language skills and their mother tongue to help others surmount language difficulties in speaking with those in authority.

She began what is now called Languages of Life in 1979. And she self-funded the enterprise, selling off jewellery she had inherited from her mother so she could ensure that her brainchild of a social-needs institution could continue. "I sold it to keep this agency going and, you know what? I would do it again", she tells a reporter interviewing her for a story.

"My mother gave me some jewellery, but arthritis too. I couldn't sell that. I tried."

That wry humour seems to be another of this indomitable woman's hallmark personality characteristics. She raised her two children on her own. And, possessor of one of those exquisitely valuable pieces of art of the Group of Seven, sold an A.Y. Jackson painting to ensure she could pay her own family expenses when her children were young.

She was busy in the late 1970s as a social worker at the Ottawa Civic Hospital, when she was first struck by the need to have interpretive services available. A Lebanese man had experienced a health emergency at the airport, and arrived at the hospital with a life-threatening condition. He was unable to convey any information to the enquiring medical professionals.

And that set her on the road to her enterprise. She responded to that initial situation by contacting Lebanese friends, asking them to assist, and from that time on she began the framework of what became her life-work, assisting those who were unable to help themselves for lack of adequate language skills in a place other than their home countries.

There are now about 400 interpreters capable of translating roughly 140 languages. There is no government funding. Public fundraising does the trick in establishing a modest budget that pays for two staff. Bryna Monson's office is where she can be found, still hard at work, while others her age feel more than entitled to pamper themselves.

"I love what I do. I'm happy to be here at eight in the morning, or to get up for a call at two in the morning, because I love what I'm doing."

What she loves doing is of inestimable value to the society she is part of. That Queen's Diamond Jubilee medal was well and truly earned.