Phila.gov
Read full article at ThePhiladelphiaCitizen.org
Everyday she’s working (which is most days) Sarorng “Rorng” Sorn strives to make the invisible visible. As Language Access Coordinator for the City of Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services, Sorn connects the city’s least seen populations — Philadelphians from places where English is not the primary language and their families — with the least visible of health services — mental and behavioral. The barriers she and her staff work to overcome are formidable. The most obvious: the 80 or so ethnic languages spoken by 15 percent of the city’s population.
But Sorn’s life experience has eminently equipped her to connect with immigrants, especially traumatized immigrants. Not only is she a Cambodian refugee who experienced more horrors as a young child than most adults will experience in a lifetime, but she is also a born carer, connector — and someone for whom honesty, warmth and service are the only options.
“She’s got this energy — a kind energy — that just she exudes,” says longtime friend and collaborator, Court of Common Pleas Judge Stella Tsai. “Her kindness, her generosity, her spirit, her intelligence — she just brings all those qualities together. It’s hard not to admire somebody like that.”