Canberra's community leaders are key to reaching the city's non-English speakers, but some say the ACT government could do more.
While ACT Health provides translations of COVID information, Chin Wong, chair of Canberra Multicultural Community Forum said it was not always direct enough and "too clinical sometimes".
Ms Wong also said that while community leaders were key to reaching non-English speakers, the government could do more to help.
"The government certainly could do better in terms of helping the community to disseminate the information, the community [leaders] are volunteers," she said.
"We can only do so much."
She said it was difficult for volunteers to help vulnerable members of their community at this time due to the risk of COVID-19.
"With the lockdown, the volunteers are not willing to go out because ... it's high risk," she said.
"And so I have got a couple of the seniors who are living in there on their own, and they wanted to get the vaccine, but they can't and they've got language barriers."
Finding specific answers to questions related to the COVID outbreak can be difficult for non-English speakers, and inquiries are often directed to community leaders.
The forum's secretary Yelin Hung said she wanted the community to be aware that they had access to free translation services through the federal government's Translating and Interpreting Service.
She said information about that needed to be provided in different languages so that Canberra's multicultural community was aware of the service.
Nishi Puri, president of the Multicultural Association of Canberra, said the organisation was active in circulating information provided by the ACT government in a range of languages.
She felt that there was sufficient information for these groups.
Her organisation is taking an active role in addressing vaccine hesitancy, hosting an online Q&A at the weekend with a doctor about the AstraZeneca vaccine for people who have been discouraged by reports of a rare blood clotting disorder.
"There's a big concern about that in the community, and everybody wants either a Pfizer or a Moderna,even the people who are 60 plus," Ms Puri said.
"Some of them haven't gotten vaccinated because of this reason."
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said information was available online, SBS radio broadcasted some translations and information was circulated to community leaders.
"There's actually a lot of work that goes on with our multicultural community leaders," she told ABC radio on Tuesday.
