In March 2016, Eric Ragu became the first Translators without Borders (TWB) volunteer translator to reach the 500,000 translated words milestone. We caught up with Eric to hear about how he did it. “It means a lot! It means hundreds of hours of hard work, research and sometimes struggle to get to the right words.” Eric explained, when asked about his incredible achievement. “Now, my next target is to go beyond the 1 million words limit. I hope that I will get more people engaged with TWB, because currently some people seemsurprised when I explain them that I already translated 500,000 words for NGOs.”
In 2011, Eric completed an MA in Translation Sciences from the University of Heidelberg after graduating with a BA in Applied Foreign Languages in France. He now works as a freelance translator from English and German into French with his partner, Annika Rathjens, in their common translation bureau Я & R Language Services near Hamburg in Germany. His passions are newspaper cartoons and non-mainstream progressive and ecology-oriented newspapers. Eric wants to open an alternative newspaper kiosk and organize a free library service as well as debates and cultural events to share this passion with others.
“I found out about TWB in an ad on ProZ.com some years ago. At that time, I didn’t have much money but I wanted to get engaged and make a difference.I was fascinated by the idea and variety of topics covered by TWB so I decided to offer my expertise to organizations, big and small, that are striving to make this world a better place to live in.”
Eric feels proud to play a small part in fighting against diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria and leprosy, something his grandmother, a member of the French Association against Leprosy Foundation, Raoul Follereau, was also very passionate about. Translating for TWB has also been a learning experience for Eric: “I got more sensitized to problems happening in regions that don’t get much media attention, or that affect people whose voice you do not hear in mainstream news channels. When I try to explain to people what’s going on in Nord-Kivu or Haiti, they often ask me how do I know about it. Thanks to TWB, I got more interested in situations that are not widely reported in the news.”
“Some people seem disinterested when I tell them about what I do, but I am confident in what I am doing,” said Eric, with a final quote: “Gandhi once said: At the beginning, they ignore you, then they laugh at you and finally, they imitate you.”
“The sense that people are genuinely helped by my translation makes me happy”
For more than 11 years, Bashir Baqi has translated a wide variety of texts between English and his native Farsi — from home appliance operating manuals, technical texts on philosophy, architecture, and psychology, to user interfaces, games, and Wikipedia pages. Bashir is also a freelance proof-reader and loves walking – whether by the ocean or through remote jungles.
A desire to help others
For the last few months, Bashir has donated up to twenty hours each week to the TWB European Refugee Crisis response project. He is driven by a desire to help other humans in the best way he can: giving them information in a language they understand. “The sense that people are genuinely helped by my translations makes me happy, and I wish I could do more,” he said. “Being able to do it as a volunteer, without egotism or obligation, gives me a positive feeling, and I would surely encourage other translators to try it too.”
Bashir holds a Masters of Arts in Translation Studies from Iran’s Birjand University and a diploma in English from the Iran Language Institute. His clients have included the Iranian Ministry of Science, the Iranian police department, and various publishing companies.
Omid Xadem
“I could see the pain of those who couldn’t communicate”
Omid Xadem, a Farsi-Dari-Tajik Persian linguist and researcher, is a member of the TWB Rapid Response Team in Europe. The current refugee situation is particularly personal for him. Omid traveled across Turkey for two months and kept seeing the same picture: refugee children working in shops, but unable to communicate. “In Konya, a city that is hosting a great number of Syrian refugees, I saw a little girl selling some handkerchiefs and other trinkets. She had nowhere to go, she didn’t seem to belong to anyone and she only spoke Arabic. I could see that she wanted help and to keep her dignity by working. And it really moved me,” relates Omid.
practical TranslatiONS
Omid joined TWB when the organization started looking for Farsi speakers for its Words of Relief program. With rich experience in translating and interpreting, Omid is working with the team on voice-over recordings, radio messages, written texts, reviews, and quality assurance. Materials that the team produces have very practical uses: updating refugees on the situation at the borders or about any impending complications, such as ferry strikes, informing them how to register and directing them to the right people – if they need a doctor or have lost their luggage, for example. Omid explains his work very simply: “lots of people on the ground are also volunteers. We are trying to make it easier for them to communicate with the refugees.”
INTERESTED IN VolunteerING
Bashir and Omid have dedicated over 50 hours each of volunteering time to Translators without Borders. If you would like to apply to become a Rapid Response translator, click here.
Volunteer translators are at the heart of Translators without Borders’ response to the European refugee crisis. They work tirelessly to translate a range of important content such as directions on how to reach specific locations or camps, instructions on what to do inside an asylum center, media roundups, weather forecasts, and other articles that may help refugees on their journey.
Translation breaks barriers
Seham Abdou Ebied, an Egyptian, remembers the influx of refugees in her town as soon as the Syrian conflict broke out. They told her stories of war and destruction, about their children and relatives being killed in front of their eyes. The refugees she met fled their homes and walked all the way to Turkey before coming to Egypt. “The images I’ve seen in the media of drowned children and adults – I kept thinking to myself that they are escaping from death to another.”
“Refugees, children and adults, need to understand and receive accurate information in such a crisis – and this can only be achieved through communication in their native language. That’s why I believe translation is as important as food and shelter because it removes the barriers, and helps people cope when they are suffering and far away from home”, explains TWB’s volunteer translator Seham Abdou Ebied.
refugees can’t wait
As part of a larger team, Seham communicates with other members though Skype, where they share files for translation.
“This was all set up by TWB managers, who provide us with very professional support and do their best to answer all our queries. In the world of translation, you have to be quick. Translation for NGOs and refugees needs to be prompt, as there are new documents every hour. Sometimes I have translation work, but then I receive a translation request for TWB, I think and say:”
“My work can wait, but refugees can’t. What a wonderful feeling it is to do something for humanity, and to relieve someone in distress”
Joining TWB
Seham learned about Translators without Borders through her colleagues.
“Once I found out about TWB’s mission, I filled out the application form and waited for response. After a month, I was delighted to receive an offer to become a member Rapid Response Team for Arabic.”
Do you want to break barriers with translation? Sign up as a volunteer translator on the TWB website.
By Marketa Sostakova, Translators without Borders volunteer
world humanitarian summit, Istanbul, Turkey 23 – 24 May 2016
Last week I had the good fortune of attending the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, the first convening of its kind. Beyond the lovely – and slightly extravagant – opening ceremony, there was real work to be done at the summit. With the mantra, “Leave No One Behind” and the hashtag, #ShareHumanity, the ‘powers that be’ attempted to shift the conversation – and the mindset – within the humanitarian aid community to community engagement and local empowerment. A few significant commitments were made, especially the Grand Bargain target of 25 percent of international funds going to local NGOs by 2020, and initiatives launched, such as the Network for Empowered Aid Response.
Yet session after session, I waited to hear the specific commitments from UN agencies and major NGOs. They were not forthcoming. There were declarations that individual voices matter, that partnerships with local actors are important, and that we just must do something about the migration crisis. These were sound bites, written and spoken without passion. But actual financial or program commitments on a broad scale were sadly lacking.
But does it even matter?
I left feeling relieved that I didn’t fall asleep in the special sessions, but energized by the activities and voices that I heard in other settings throughout the venue. The shift in funding to local and national NGOs and enterprises, coupled with exciting innovations and the involvement of for-profit socially minded companies, will necessarily change the focus to local solutions, with or without the international humanitarian leaders. Whether they survive the shift will be up to them. I was particularly excited by three trends that permeated the summit:
Small enterprises with big ideas.
Throughout the summit’s Innovation Marketplace and wandering the halls, were many entrepreneurs who are figuring out ways to either assist international agencies with the shift to local or simply bypass them; it is a shame that the diplomats and agency directors who walked through the Marketplace to get to the Facebook Live booth did not glance at the cool innovations as they passed. HumanSurge, for example, allows professionals in surge capacity to manage their own careers and their own deployments, opening many more opportunities for employment. The creators of MedBox focus on truly open health content that can be shared by anyone, anywhere, not unlike our local language Words of Relief Repository. Our fellow CDAC-Network member, Ground Truth Solutions, told the special session on People at the Centre that communicating with communities is not just about listening, but acting on what we hear – and listening again.
Bottom-up momentum.
While the leaders may be slow to commit to change, at the field level the shift is clear. In our advocacy for more local language content, we often hit roadblocks at country or international levels. There is a presumption that translation is not that important, or that bi-lingual staff can do it just fine. But field staff really understand the need and are committed to local language as a tool to communicate better with and listen to communities. Those who came by our booth at the summit were thrilled that this issue is getting more attention. Importantly, more and more, field staff in places like Kenya, Guinea and Greece are forcing changes higher up the chain. There are also promising pockets of change within headquarters staff, such as the exciting work being done by UNHCR Innovation’s Emergency Lab, and the ICRC’s team committed to communicating with communities. While commitments on an international level were sparse, individuals throughout the summit were committing to the paradigm shift, and that mindset will seep through the sector over time.
Sustainable funding models.
Probably the most exciting conversations I had at the World Humanitarian Summit were those with like-minded organizations focused on non-traditional funding models. It is critical that we look beyond grant cycles to fund important initiatives and innovations that improve overall response. Many members of the humanitarian-to-humanitarian (H2H) initiative launched by ACAPS, of which we are a member, are considering service funding models as a way to build infrastructure and hire staff that fit the needs of the organization, not just the latest grant proposal. It was encouraging to get many nods of support for our new service funding approach from a wide range of large non-profits and agencies. While institutional funding will continue to be important for organizations like ours, sustainable long-term funding modeled after tech start-ups (and encouraged by such innovative funders as the Humanitarian Innovation Fund), will increase innovations designed specifically to meet humanitarian needs, encourage competition to sort out the best ideas, and allow professionalization of small enterprises and non-profit organizations on the local, national and international level.
A momentum for change
Over three years of consultations leading up to the summit, there were many questions as to whether any of it would matter, whether the UN and the sector could actually change to improve humanitarian response. But as those questions were being asked, change was happening all around us. There is momentum for change on local and even international levels. How it will shake out, and who will be the major players in ten years, is unknown, but I’m optimistic that response will be improved, with or without today’s leaders.
Read more about the World Humanitarian Summit here.
By Rebecca Petras, Translators without Borders Deputy Director and Head of Innovation
Leave no one behind and localization are big picture ideas that are being widely-discussed at the World Humanitarian Summit next week in Istanbul.
But, what does it really mean to leave no one – not one single person – behind?
As the head of an organization that began and remains firmly based in the localization industry, I’d like to add my voice to the conversation –it’s a conversation vital to everything we do as humanitarians.
I’ve been thinking about what humanitarians can learn from the corporate sector in terms of localization. When I say “humanitarians”, I mean local, national, international NGOs, UN agencies, etc.
Why localization?
Why do companies localize? What do they know that we (humanitarians) don’t? The localization industry is expected to be worth $37 billion by 2018. Obviously, localization matters to corporations.
Here is what they know:
People remember and respond better to what they learn in their native language.
According to Robert Lane Greene of The Economist, research demonstrates that when people read something in a language they understand, they can comprehend it. If they read something in their mother tongue, they are more apt to believe it to be true.
Simplify, simplify, simplify. Simple messages in native languages work. Content can’t be translated well if it doesn’t make sense in the original language.
Go to the customer. Go to the places where people get information. Localize what you find and create what is missing.
Provide people with knowledge and information, not instructions. Let people decide how to use the knowledge.
Ensure efficient processes. Use technology to speed up (but not substitute for) localization.
We humanitarians know this. But why do companies localize, but we in the humanitarian world don’t?
Same, same, but different
In the corporate translation/content world, localization is about how to make information accessible to customers. For humanitarians, localization is about putting affected people at the center of the humanitarian response.
Maybe it’s the same thing? Doesn’t “leaving no one behind” mean making our “products” accessible to people affected by crises, our customers? Doesn’t putting people at the center of the response mean that they decide which products best suit their needs?
Why are we behind in our participation?
We’ve all heard the excuses:
Translation is too expensive; we don’t have the budgets companies have.
Translation takes too long and people will die.
We don’t have translators on staff, and those we do have focus on the languages that our donors speak, not those languages that affected people speak.
Just give them cash and let them work out what they need. People can make their own decisions.
Let’s address these.
Translation is too expensive
It IS expensive to translate a lot of content. Fortunately, we already have the lessons that the private sector has learned and the tools they’ve developed. We need to:
Decide what is crucial information (not huge tomes)
Ensure that the content is good (for example, not UN or NGO-speak)
Find qualified professional translators (bad translations can kill)
Use translation tools wisely
Make the process efficient
These things cut costs and force us to prioritize.
Translation takes too long and people will die.
Or they will die because they don’t get the right information at the right time in the right way? In my four months at TWB, I’ve discovered that this is really not as hard as we think. TWB currently releases information in Arabic, Farsi, and Greek in less than five hours. And with the social media penetration rates of many of the places we work, we provide the best information to people using high-quality translations, subtitles, or voice overs before most humanitarians can score their visas, flights, hotels and advances.
Localization works even better if there are trained community translators already in the country of need. In-country resources are low-cost and easily developed for all humanitarian and development workers.
As an aid community, we need to think differently. Think about how much you can do virtually, without getting on a plane. For example, TWB has no corporate HQ – our only office is a translation center in Nairobi. All of our staff and our 3,400 translators work remotely.
Just give them the cash.
I agree. Give them the cash. And ensure that those in need have access to
high-quality information that they understand so they know what’s available to best protect themselves and their families.
Localization is as much about improving the quality of assistance as it is about ensuring people can protect themselves and live with dignity. As an aid community, we can only meet our own rigorous standards if people get the information they need in a language they speak and in a format they can access.
With all the other commitments, let’s make sure we really do leave no one behind.
Still not convinced?
Translators without Borders has done a series of very simple comprehension studies. This will make you think:
197 people were asked questions about how Ebola is spread.
8% of the questions were answered correctly
About 100 of these people attended an English information session; the other 100 got the same information in a professionally-translated Swahili session
Both groups were given the same test at the end of the sessions
The group that received information in English got 16% of the questions correct
The ground that received info in Swahili got…
….Wait for it…
92% of the questions correct.
If we’re really serious about ‘leaving no one behind’, then every humanitarian organization should invest in ensuring that key information is already translated into languages where we know disasters will occur (or are occurring) by:
Train community translators and interpreters to listen and respond, alongside community groups.
Ask for translation support. There are tools to rapidly develop local translator networks or global virtual translation/interpreting teams.
Pre-translate questionnaires and make them available in various media. You can sub-title or dub videos or radio programs fairly easily into numerous languages and have them ready for deployment.
Make sure source content is simplified in advance. I shudder to think that we might have to ask translators to translate the CHS graphic. Simple language can be easily translated into languages that are not vocabulary-rich, without compromising the meaning.
It’s not difficult. It’s not expensive. It will improve our accountability. It will save lives.
Come visit TWB in the Innovation Marketplace at the WHS. We will be at booth #2.
Contributors: Val Swisher, Founder & CEO of Content Rules and Donna Parrish, Owner/President of MultiLingual Computing, Inc., publisher of the language industry magazine “MultiLingual” and Co-owner and President of Localization World, Ltd., inputted significantly to this piece. They are TWB Board Members.
By Aimee Ansari, Translators without Borders Executive Director
Since November 2015, as part of our response to the European refugee crisis, Translators without Borders has translated over 100,000 words of critical information into main refugee languages. We have reached tens of thousands of refugees on their journey from the Greek islands and along the ‘Balkan route’ and we have engaged over 100 professionals and volunteer translators for our Words of Relief European refugee response program.
Meet TWB
Meet Translators without Borders at the following upcoming events:
Here on Lesbos, I tend to disappoint people at first meeting, when they hear about the TWB translation support. My introductory conversations go something like this:
Me: “Hi, I’m Lali, Communications Manager for Translators without Borders’ European Refugee Response.”
Them: “Hi!” (very excited) “A translator! That’s great! We desperately need Arabic…”
Me: “No, I’m not a translator…”
Them: “But I thought you said you worked for…?” (perplexed)
Me: “I’m coordinating partnerships and communicating about our work…”
Them: “Oh.” (profoundly disappointed)
The immediate need of translation support
In this crisis response, everyone needs translation support – and needs it immediately. The demand for translation and interpretation is so urgent and so widespread that I’ve had that introductory conversation (or one very similar to it) with refugees, aid workers and volunteers alike. At registration centres, in meetings, outside tents, in cafes and on the beaches: I’ve disappointed people all over the island of Lesbos.
Spend a day (or an hour) working as part of any international humanitarian response, and you’ll understand the disappointment. There are obvious life-saving moments (understanding that someone needs a doctor, telling a child that the water is not safe to drink) when a common language is key. And then there are more complex situations (explaining rules and regulations, mediating between parties) which are extremely difficult even without a language barrier. All this is true of any humanitarian crisis.
But everyone working on the ground here agrees that communication needs during this, the European refugee crisis response, are special. What’s more, communication is central to this crisis response in a way that is entirely new to the international humanitarian community. I’d been told this, I’d read about this, but for me, it took actually seeing (and hearing) the crisis myself to understand why exactly this is the case. I’m still feeling out the dimensions of the enormous communication challenges we all face here and, as part of my role within TWB’s Words of Relief project, I’ll continue doing so. Right now though, to me, the challenges look something like this:
The refugee population is linguistically diverse
As an independent volunteer working at a clothing distribution point, I was trying to help a newly arrived Iraqi woman, shivering with cold, to find the clothes she needed. The woman was miming what looked to me to be a pair of trousers, so off I went to get trousers. Wrong. She tried again…now it looked like underwear. I went to get underwear. Wrong again. There was an Arabic interpreter nearby so I dragged him over to help, but he soon found out the woman didn’t speak Arabic. “She only speaks Kurdish,” he said.
This is not unusual: almost 80 percent of the refugees coming across the waters are Arabic or Farsi speaking. The Arabic speakers from Syria tend to be more educated with someone in their group able to communicate in English, whereas the Farsi (or Dari) speakers from Afghanistan often do not understand English at all. The other 20 percent of refugees do not speak or read in either of these languages. TWB has had requests from our partners for translation support in languages as various as Kurdish, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Tigrinya and French. Time- consuming and disempowering interaction is all too common in this crisis because those working on the ground simply don’t have access to these languages.
Host community and refugee population don’t share a common language
A group of local volunteers express shyness in communicating with refugees; an NGO partner in Serbia finds it incredibly difficult to recruit local Arabic speakers; TWB can’t draw on the local community for interpretation and translation support; partners request the most basic traveller’s information for refugees (such as how to use an ATM). These and many other communication challenges arise from the unusual geography of this crisis: refugees do not typically speak the languages of the host communities they encounter on their route.
It is further testament to the enormously hospitable response of the Lesbos’ local population that they rarely understand the languages of the refugees they assist. But when it comes to more complex interactions, between government officials and refugees, for instance, language barriers can exacerbate or generate tensions. The fact that the many international volunteers and aid workers speak neither the language of the hosts nor the refugees, is another complicating factor.
TWB is currently working with partners to include communication with host communities in all their programmes. This means (on Lesbos, for example), that every sign, pamphlet or website disseminated in Arabic, Farsi or English, has a Greek translation. This should be replicated in Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia and Croatia. We do this in the hope that equally informing communities leads to greater trust between them.
Refugees are mobile
Late one night, a man arrives at Moria registration centre soaked to the bone. It’s dark, cold and raining and we volunteers want to get him to the clothes distribution point urgently. He shakes his head: “No clothes, no clothes. Where do I register? How do I get to the port?” he asks. At that moment, getting the papers that will allow him to transit through Greece, and finding out how to get the ferry to Athens, are much more necessary than dry clothes, warmth or food. The urgent need to move on is typical of all refugees here. No one comes to Lesbos, or any other transit point, to stay.
The fact that refugees are on the move (and moving very fast in many cases) presents a major communication challenge. Unlike in other refugee crises where time is spent building trust and establishing routines at temporary resettlement sites, this crisis only allows for brief interactions with aid workers and fleeting opportunities to disseminate information. Then, with the next boatload of refugee arrivals, the information needs to be disseminated all over again. For this reason, high-quality concise translation and interpretation is even more crucial in this crisis to ensure refugees keep themselves and their families safe.
Refugees need constantly changing information
Most people know an anxious traveller. Maybe you are one yourself! Now just imagine that you actually have a reason to be seriously anxious (rather than just missing your train): you’re seeking asylum. On top of this, you’re in a country where you can’t read transport timetables, you’ve heard there’s a ferry strike but you’re not sure, you know that there are some countries who have closed their borders to people from your country, and you’ve heard there are people stranded in freezing temperatures further up the route. Oh and you have four children travelling with you. All is rumour, nothing is confirmed: now that’s anxious travelling.
Crisis-affected and displaced populations typically need information about health, shelter and emergency facilities. They also need information on their families and what is happening back home. In this crisis, information on travel (When is the next ferry? How much does it cost to take the bus? What is the weather forecast tomorrow?), or information on asylum procedures (Can I apply for asylum in Sweden? Can I register for a transit visa in Macedonia? Where should I say I’m heading on my registration paper?) is desperately needed by refugees. But this information is constantly changing – often by the minute. TWB is working closely with our partners to make sure information disseminated online and throughout humanitarian networks is rapidly translated so that refugees can make informed choices.
Fortunately, my conversations on Lesbos don’t end in disappointment. The immediate need for language skills that makes both me and the person I’m talking to wish I was indeed a translator, is only the most obvious manifestation of the communication challenges of this crisis. When I explain what Translators without Borders is doing to take the pressure off interpreters on the ground, to supply diverse language skills, to communicate with host communities, to produce professional, high-quality content, and provide rapid translation in a constantly changing environment – the disappointment invariably turns to comprehension and then, cooperation. In this crisis, the immediate demand will remain, but a more context-specific and sustainable response will best meet the communication challenges of a crisis that shows no sign of ending any time soon. And that’s how we provide the best possible translation support.
By Lali Foster, former Communications Manger for the European refugee crisis response
Meena Bhandari, International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
In response to winterizing messages:
“I just wanted to thank you sincerely for all of your hard work coordinating these translations. They look wonderful and have received a lovely response from people. I hope we can push them out fast enough to refugees so they really make an impact!” “This is GREAT! Thanks for sharing. Good to use for winterization programme for Athens, for Idomeni and the other islands as well.”
Why: The Globalization and Localization Association (GALA) is the world’s leading trade association for the language industry. This year’s Gala theme is the Language of Business, the Business of Language.
Why: An initiative by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, managed by UN OCHA, the first World Humanitarian Summit will bring together governments, humanitarian organizations, people affected by humanitarian crises, and new partners including the private sector to propose solutions to our most pressing challenges and set an agenda to keep humanitarian action fit for the future.
Why: LocWorld is the leading conference for international business, translation, localization, and global website management. Attendees include the people responsible for communicating across the boundaries of language and culture in the global marketplace. With a specific emphasis on global business, the conference provides an opportunity for the exchange of high-value information in the language and translation services and technologies market.
Why: Organized by KantanMT at LocWorld. Company teams will take on the challenge and raise funds for charity.To raise funds for Translators Without Borders.
Participation Fee: Company Teams €1000 per team (Four people on each team), €100 for Individuals – all money raised goes to Translators Without Borders.
Between 2011 and January 2016, Translators without Borders delivered over 30 million translated words to humanitarian organizations. In 2015 alone, our translators delivered more than 7 million words through the Translators without Borders Workspace powered by ProZ.com, which is an average of almost 600 thousand words per month
The graph below shows that in the past four years we’ve had a steady growth of the number of translated words we’ve delivered, averaging around 550 thousand words per month.
Translators
By December 2015, we had 3,130 translators volunteering for TWB, which represents a 15.6% increase during the same period in 2014. Without the commitment of each of these skilled translators, TWB could not deliver the quantity and quality of service to other organizations and to communities around the world.
Delivering this volume of work is not without its challenges. A known problem is the imbalance between volunteer translator availability and the demand for the different language pairs. This means that some translators have few opportunities while others receive more requests than they can commit to.
Our top five volunteers donated over 6% of our total translation output with a combined delivery of 1.8 million words! These volunteers are Eric Ragu (486k words), Ishaklamia (436k words), Ashutosh Mitra (334k words), Raquel Bentué (324k words) and Carine Toucand (258k words).
TWB continuously evaluates the quality of our output, not just the quantity of translations. In 2016 we will place a strong focus on measuring the impact of our work. For example, translating a short disease prevention poster into many Indian languages might not contribute to a high word count, but it does significantly increase access to important information and makes a valuable difference to the lives of the target audience.
Language pairs
In the last 12 months, our translators accepted volunteer assignments in 139 language pairs. The top language pair was English to French, which represents 24% of translations, followed by English to Spanish (19%), French to English (15%), Spanish to English (5%) and English to Portuguese (5%). Overall, the top three pairs represented 58% percent of the words delivered.
TWB strives to deliver translations in many languages, including hard to source languages of Africa and India. The current demand is strongest for European languages. For example, with our top language pair English to French, demand tends to be higher than our resources can deliver.
Partner non-profits
A record 215 humanitarian organizations requested our services in the last 12 months. This represents a 34% increase since the end 2014. Top partners during that period were Médicos Sin Fronteras de España (764K words), Wikipedia (539K words), Enda Europe (217K words), Acción contra el Hambre de España (193K words) and Smile Train (186K words). The combined words delivered to the top 5 non-profits amounted to 26.7% of the total.