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.
Lali Foster, Communications Manager at Translators without Borders, responds to the European Refugee Crisis with an update from work on the ground in Lesvos, Greece.
‘Today, a seasoned humanitarian worker told me he had never understood how important language was in humanitarian crises until he started working on the European refugee response. Why? Because refugees travelling through Europe need clear information they can understand at every point in their journey. They need it to move, to work their way through complex asylum procedures and keep safe, healthy and warm. With very few Arabic and Farsi speakers (let alone Urdu, Pashto, Dari) on the ground in Greece and up through the Balkan route, TWB’s remote translation support has never been so urgently needed.
As you can imagine, Translators without Borders Rapid Response Teams have been extremely busy. We are guided by three priorities in managing our workload: 1. Addressing urgent humanitarian messaging widely across the affected population. 2. Expanding the geographical reach of our work to each stage of the refugee journey, 3. Adapting quickly to the ever-changing needs of this crisis. To date, our team of 100 professional translators acting as rapid responders has produced 5,000 words of key health information (including winter and protection info) and 5,000 words of longer-term and asylum information, which has been disseminated through key partners where it is needed the most.
Our teams have been working all day, every day to produce an enormous variety of messages that include over 100,000 words of rapidly changing information translated into Arabic, Dari, Farsi, French, Greek, Kurdish, Pashto, and Urdu. These include, but are not limited to, signage, health advice, guidelines for volunteers and staff, audio messaging, maps, ATM use instructions, scripts for radio, vocabulary lists for volunteers working at shore sites, web content, travel advice, newspaper articles, and legislation. With such critical information, the trust our humanitarian partners put in our speed and accuracy is enormous. I’m really proud to be working with such professional teams because so many humanitarians here now depend on our work to do theirs.’
Introducing additions to the Translators without Borders team
TWB recently appointed two new senior staff positions, Executive Director and Director of External Affairs, making this an exciting and important year for realizing the growth potential of the organization.
Over the past four years, TWB has become stronger and stronger, developed partnerships and continues to steadily expand, and elevating the message that communications in the right language is vital for humanitarian development. Today, more than 3,200 professional translators support the organization, offering their skills pro bono, to spread knowledge worldwide. In early February, TWB reached a major milestone of 30 million words translated for over 500 humanitarian organizations using its web-based Translators without Borders Workspace (check out the map below showing some of the work that kept us busy in 2015). To build on this work and to reach new heights, TWB now has two more staff members to make this happen.
New Executive Director Aimee Ansari said, “I’m very excited to be leading such an innovative organization with so much potential. There is an ever present need to provide lifesaving information to people in languages they can understand. But seemingly less urgent needs sometimes go unnoticed, such as the need for mothers to understand baby formula instructions or a HIV patient’s need to understand their doctors instructions on how to take their medicine correctly. Translators without Borders will continue to respond to both emergency and longer term needs associated with language and communication barriers.”
“Our volunteer base is the foundation of the organization; we couldn’t provide the services we do, without them. I look forward to leveraging their valuable work to help the organization grow and to have even greater impact. Our workspace, donated by ProZ.com, is one example of how I hope TWB can use technology to help people in crises to live with dignity,” said Amy Rose Mc Govern, new Director of External Affairs.
Translators without Borders welcomes our new staff
Aimee Ansari, Executive Director
Aimee brings 20 years of experience in leadership positions in large humanitarian and development organizations. She has worked in several humanitarian crises from the Tajik civil war to the earthquake in Haiti, the conflicts in the Balkans to the Syrian refugee crisis and the conflict in South Sudan. Her passion is listening to people and helping them create a future for themselves that allows them to thrive. She believes in developing and implementing strategies that apply creative approaches to seemingly intractable problems. Aimee speaks English and French and is conversant in Russian and Arabic.
Amy Rose Mc Govern, Director of External Affairs
Amy Rose has a background in international relations and joins Translators without Borders with over ten years experience in program management and communications in the international development cooperation sector. She has worked with NGOs, governments and institutional donors in Africa, Asia and Europe. Amy Rose is a qualified translator and interpreter (French and Spanish) and holds a degree in International Relations.
The TWB Translator Training Center in Kenya has moved location from Upper Hill to a bit more downtown (see new address below). When you happen to be in town, come look us up. The team of Phoebe Maina and Paul Warambo will be happy to show the work we do there.
Since the start in 2012, the Center has provided basic translation training to over 250 people (I had to do the calculations for a recent presentation!) Most people attended our 1-week introductory translation training. Approximately 30 people continued with a 6-week advanced training course. Under special circumstances, such as a response to an emergency, we have also delivered short training sessions varying between a few hours of online training to 2 days training in our Center. This training was for crisis intervention translation teams that respond to a specific need, such as the Ebola crisis, the Burundi election riots, the Nepal earthquake, and more recently, for the European Refugee crisis.
Rapid Response Translation Teams for European refugee crisis
Paul Warambo, the translation manager at TWB Nairobi, Kenya, is managing part of the translation activities where translators work in shifts to provide translations from English into Arabic, Farsi, and Greek. Paul recruited 20 rapid response translators for each language combination and formed 2 teams per language. Translation is also provided for Urdu, Dari, and Pashto. These languages are managed in the TWB Workspace, a web-based platform powered by www.proZ.com, that facilitates the work that thousands of professional volunteer translators do. The translators are located all around the world and include quite a few Syrians, Afghans, and Iraqi who live in Europe or in the US and support their compatriots this way. The Rapid Response Teams communicate primarily by using Skype groups.
All documents requiring translation are converted to Google Docs and translators receive a link to the article to translate. After the initial translation is completed, another member of the translation team reviews the text. After both translators agree, the customer receives a link to download the translation. Speed is key and sometimes the translation is available within the hour after receiving the source text. The work continues 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
We partner with organizations such as: International Red Cross and Crescent, Internews, the Danish Refugee Council, Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee, Catholic Rescue Service, the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the Mercy Corps, and local partners.
We translate posters and flyers for use in the refugee camps, such as information on where to get food, where the toilets are, and where supplies are distributed. Ferry schedules and locations and updates on ferry strikes or accidents are translated for publication. Other topics include asylum rights, disease outbreaks, and more. We also translate daily weather reports for Internews, which is important for many people.
Training for Rapid Response Translation Teams
In the Kenya office, we recently revised our translator training materials used to train refugee crisis translators. TWB’s translation and training volunteer, Abdelah Lomri, took a few months off and is now presenting the training sessions in Greece. The main module of the program is “Introduction to translation for rapid response translation teams”. In addition, some basic medical modules will be given. Various topics like hypothermia, cholera, and tuberculosis health messages are vital to refugees.
In 2015 we focused on the Ebola crisis. Currently, our priority is the European refugee crisis. We have constant flow of rising needs like the growing Zika virus crisis. The TWB Kenya Translation Center continues to play a vital role in many of TWB’s important projects worldwide.
Kenya office address: 1st Ngong Avenue, ACK Garden House, Nairobi.
Postal address : TWB Kenya, c/o RedR UK Kenya, P.O. Box 51645-00100, Nairobi, Kenya.
In its stated mission to promote a world where knowledge knows no language barriers, Translators without Borders (TWB) has taken another major step forward, working with Microsoft to launch Kiswahili (also known as Swahili) translation through Microsoft Translator. This is welcome news for the estimated 150 million Kiswahili speakers throughout East Africa, including Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kiswahili is the first African language to be added to the automatic translation service.
Launched in Nairobi, Kenya in October 2015 by Microsoft, Kiswahili text translation runs on Microsoft cloud services and has been integrated across Microsoft’s product range, including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Translator apps (Windows, Android and iOS), and Cortana, among others. This effectively means that users can translate text into and out of the Kiswahili language anywhere and at any time. Kiswahili is also now available as an instant messaging language on Skype for Windows Desktop (www.skype.com) for real-time global communication.
“Government bodies and NGOs in Kiswahili-speaking countries can now produce documents and information at virtually no cost and communicate rapidly with local communities,” explains Will Lewis, Principal Technical Program Manager, Microsoft Machine Translation and Skype Translator. “They, businesses and private individuals can all benefit, as communications difficulties between Kiswahili and non-Kiswahili speakers become a thing of the past.”
“Working with Translators without Borders on this ground-breaking initiative has been very satisfying,” Lewis adds. “Our mission at Microsoft, as the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, is to empower every person and every organization on the planet, so we wholeheartedly support TWB’s humanitarian goals.”
Written by Sarah Powell
Interviewee: Will Lewis, Principal Technical Program Manager, Microsoft Machine Translation and Skype Translator
Internews and Translators without Borders are collaborating on a very important project in Greece and the Balkans. NewsthatMoves is a humanitarian information service that provides refugees along the migrant routes in Europe with fast, accurate, and useful daily information to their mobile phones, online,and through social media.
In addition, NewsthatMoves is the Mediterranean Rumor Tracker, which tracks and collects the rumors among refugee communities passing through Europe. By identifying misinformation and hearsay and responding to it with relevant, factual information, NewsThatMoves aims to keep the refugee population well informed and safe. The service is available on mobile phones and it is linked to www.refugeeinfo.eu, which is managed by the International Rescue Committee. The site is shared via volunteer networks throughout the Balkans and Greece and its impact has been growing steadily over the past months. Rumors also has an offline component whereby communication in print and audio format is produced for people arriving in Lesvos. This includes information about registration, essential services, and options about what they can do next.
As part of its Words of Relief* project that responds to the European Refugee Crisis, Translators without Borders provides daily rapid response translation of news reports for NewsthatMoves into Arabic, Farsi, and Greek. It is critical that the information is provided in the languages of the people who need it. From updates on border closures, to ferry strike notifications and changing immigration procedures, Internews and Translators without Borders are keeping refugees along the migration route informed and empowered to help themselves.
*Words of Relief is a Translators without Borders (TWB) project designed to provide local language translation services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), UN agencies, and other actors during times of crisis and humanitarian response.
By Lali Foster, former Communications Manger for the European refugee crisis response
