RIO: Request Indigenous Language Interpreter
Everyone Has a Right to Understand and Be Understood
RIO is here to help!
Every day, Oregonians make life-changing decisions—in hospitals, courtrooms, classrooms, and public offices. But for nearly 50,000 Indigenous language speakers, access to those spaces is often blocked—most often by lack of interpretation.
Without it, people are denied critical medical care, wrongfully incarcerated, and shut out of education and essential public services.
- Courts face delays and growing caseloads
- Health care providers lose time—or turn patients away
- Educators struggle to connect with families
Language access is a right for all!
If you work in health care, education or justice in Oregon—RIO is here to help you connect with qualified interpreters today!
Please fill out our request form with your organization’s information to request interpretation.
Meet RIO: Indigenous Languages Fund
RIO is a state-funded program of Oregon Worker Relief designed to support language access and equity across Oregon. The RIO Fund compensates interpreters of Indigenous and limited diffusion languages for interpretation services that would otherwise go unpaid or underpaid.
The fund supports interpretation in legal, medical, educational, and social service settings—where communication is essential to health, safety, and justice.
Languages include: Chuj, K’iche’, Mam, Q’anjob’al, Akateko, Ixil, Mixteco, Zapoteco, Yucateco, Purépecha, Q’eqchi’, and more.
RIO offers interpretation through Pueblo Unido’s Collective of Indigenous Interpreters of Oregon (CIIO), a group of interpreters of Indigenous languages from regions presently-known as Mexico and Central America.
RIO is NOT intended to replace existing funds dedicated to meet legal requirements to provide interpretation and language access, which include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Executive Order 13166.
Questions? Contact Puma Tzoc, CIIO Senior Director at Pueblo Unido
or Malín Jimenez, CIIO Associate Director at Pueblo Unido.Outreach Materials Available
We offer outreach materials in English and Spanish to post in your office or community.
Click below to download and print!
