Translators Without Borders, Author at Translators without Borders Blog

Five Success Strategies for Non-Profits Needing Translations

Volunteer translators dedicate only a part of their time to unpaid humanitarian activities, and this scarce resource is also demanded by other projects and organizations. This means that there may be translation requests that will not be fulfilled.

To improve the odds that your requests for help will be accepted, you should do your best to make the projects attractive to the volunteer translators. Some success strategies are presented in this article.

You need an appealing project

You are asking for a donation of someone’s skill and time, and you need to explain why it is needed. To do so, you should create a project name, summary and description that all explain why the translation will make a difference by helping mitigate damages or risks, by improving education, and so on. Whenever possible, include details such as the nature of the “event” behind the need (earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, civil war outbreaks), the location, the people that will benefit by the project’s deliverables, and so forth.

Provide a reasonable deadline

The choice of the right deadline is a critical factor for project acceptance by the volunteers. In general, more available time means a more likely acceptance. A week is reasonable for documents of up to 2,000 words, but longer times should be considered for larger files. If shorter deadlines are really needed it may be helpful to explain the reasons behind the urgency.

Format should be user-friendly

Format is paramount for a translator. Protected documents are not translatable. PDF files are not compatible with translation tools. PDF files can sometimes be extracted into other formats but this extraction is extra work, and most probably the page layout will be affected, sometimes severely. If you locate the editable document used to create the PDF, you will greatly improve the chances that your translation request will be accepted by volunteers. You will also improve the quality and delivery time of the translation.

Instructions should be complete

Clearly state your needs when you create the translation request. Remember to include all relevant information, such as local variant of the target language to be used, register, and educational level of the people who will use the translation. Most translators working into Iberian Portuguese will decline a text that is supposed to be translated into Brazilian Portuguese, so this information should be available from the start. Also consider adding reference material that could be useful to the translators. Glossaries, similar translated documents, common acronyms and the like will make the translators happier and will result in a better translation.

Build a relationship

Volunteer translators are generous individuals willing to donate their time and professional expertise for a humanitarian cause, and they should not be taken for granted. Remember to thank them. Be quick to answer their queries and to share any good feedback received about their translations. Whenever possible, acknowledge their work within your organization, on our Facebook page and in social media. In short, build a two-way relationship — the best success strategy in Translators without Borders as well as in life.

By Enrique Cavalitto from ProZ.com

Monica Oliveira, the “Resource Manager” for Translators without Borders – our Volunteer Hero of the month

For this third issue of our newsletter, we have interviewed Monica Oliveira, who is the volunteer “Resource Manager” for Translators without Borders. One of her goals is to help Translators without Borders bring in more volunteer translators more quickly through a “Fast Track” process in which translators who are either certified ATA translators, Proz.com PROs or work with an LSP partner such as Lionbridge are automatically approved as TWB translators. Monica shares with us her inspirational thoughts, experiences and dreams as a hardworking mom, social communicator and a true believer in volunteer work.

1. If you were to write a brief wiki article about yourself, what facts and personal characteristics would you include?

I am Brazilian, originally from Rio. I hold a degree in Social Communication and I feel passionate about information diffusion. I developed my professional career as a journalist for many years in Brazil. Then, I became a political correspondent. I came to the United States for graduate school, and this is where I got married and had my two kids. Over time, I have moved to translation and localization. Currently, I am the Regional Director for the Americas with Lionbridge.

If you ask any of my friends for a word to describe me, that would be “hardworking”; I am always doing things, with my job, my family, my daughters’ school, and, of course, volunteer work. I am so used to work I do not feel it is hard work anymore!

2. What is your role at TWB?

Recruiting. I am the “Resource Manager” if we have to put a title to it. My task is to build the resource base and to expand it. Another goal is to set up a structure and workflow to make the recruiting process easier in the future.

3. What has motivated you to help TWB?

My passion for the diffusion of information. Let me tell you a story: When I was a journalist in Brazil, I embarked on a scientific expedition into the Amazon to write about the environment. When we arrived in a village, the public health doctors talked to the locals and found out that there were many cases of diarrhea and other water-related diseases. The doctors told them to put a spoon of bleach (chlorine) into the water – that is what large water companies in big cities basically do. It solved a lot of problems! So… such a tiny piece of information made a huge impact on their lives. Since then, I have started thinking about how something small – it might be something simple that many of us take for granted – can change the lives of many other people. When we think about Translators without Borders, this idea fits into place.

4. What is a day in your life like?

My day starts very early, at about five in the morning. I begin with the things I like and my volunteer work. I get my kids ready and take them to school. I work in my office – at home – until around three in the afternoon. I manage to pick up my daughter and have a lunch break. Technology really helps working moms like me! I have to take into account that part of my team is in Asia, and the possibility of working from home lets me hold meetings with them at odd hours due to different time zones.

5. How do you squeeze in time for your volunteer tasks?

I try to complete volunteer tasks early in the morning, or after my kids go to bed in the evening. Depending on the task, I might also devote some time during weekends if it takes longer or if I am too tired in the evenings during weekdays, and I need a fresh brain to do it!

6. What do you consider are the challenges ahead for your role and for TWB?

I think a big challenge is to be able to communicate the goodness; that is, what the job can do for other people; to convince volunteers that maybe two hours a month will not affect their routines very much but it will hugely impact other people’s lives. As we are a volunteer-based organization, we have to be able to attract volunteers and to keep them willing to volunteer their skills and time; to make them feel it is worth engaging in Translators without Borders.

7. What would you say to someone who is thinking about joining a cause like TWB?

I would say that you cannot believe how good it feels when you see the results, and in turn, that makes you feel good about yourself.

8. To what extent do your professional and personal goals come together with your volunteer work?

I have a great passion for the diffusion of information. I want to raise two good people – my kids – and I want to help people raise good people. We need to care, and it is like snowballs: you do it with your kids and it spreads.

9. Could you tell us a bit about teamwork and personal relationships with other members of TWB?

At first, I mainly worked with Lori, but then I also started working more with Rebecca, Enrique and Serena. Most of our work is through virtual interaction, so we have never met face-to-face yet (except with Lori at a conference!)

10. What do you feel is your greatest achievement within TWB and beyond TWB so far and what is your biggest dream in life?

I am very committed to the cause, but I cannot say I have seen any great achievements in regards to my task of bringing in new resources since I only joined a year ago, and results are coming slower than I would like… we can definitely say the best is yet to come.

One of my biggest dreams is to raise two good people, who care and who are committed to good things. My other great dream is to have time to be a writer.

Target shooting…

In paper: Any book, especially a book by Gabriel García Márquez

On the web: Facebook! To interact with my relatives back in Brazil

Open-air activity: Hiking

With friends: Eating

Family gathering: Thanksgiving

By Lorena Baudo, Translators without Borders volunteer

Poland to Budapest for Fund-a-Translator

Translators without Border’s Fund-a-Translator program is a new scheme to further help train local people in Kenya to become professional translators.

The team of Lucjan Szreter and Marek Gawrysiak from TextPartner cycled 288 km from Poland to Budapest to help raise money for the Fund-a-Translator Program.

They raised $700 on Day 1 of the great ride from Poland to Hungary!

Volunteer hero: Anne-Marie Colliander Lind

For this second issue of our newsletter, we have interviewed one of our volunteer heroines: Anne-Marie Colliander Lind, who helps to raise the money that makes Translators without Borders go round

Q: If you were to write a brief wiki article about yourself, what facts and personal characteristics would you include?

A: I was born and raised in Stockholm, Sweden, and I’ve spent most of my summers in Spain. Horseback riding was my first true passion and I’ve competed successfully in show jumping until only a few years ago. Since I was little, my dream was to be bilingual, so maybe that is why I accidentally ended up in the translation industry. I have no qualification or experience as a translator, but I have been involved in the translation industry as a businesswoman since 1989. I am an optimistic, outgoing person; I see opportunities rather than challenges.

Q: What is your role at Translators without Borders?

A: My role is to raise funds by bringing more corporate sponsors to the organization. Translators without Borders has grown as an organization and has all elements well in place, however it does need more financial contributions to get to the next level – to reach out to more NGOs.

Q: What has motivated you to help Translators without Borders?

A: Well, I heard about Translators without Borders some ten years ago and charity has always been present in my family, if even on a small scale. As I’m not qualified to be a volunteer translator, I’m happy I could take another role in supporting the cause.

Q: What is a day in your life like?

A: I am an independent business consultant so I travel a lot to meet clients onsite, which gives me the chance to visit new places and countries. It might be that one week I have to travel to Poland, and then I have to go to Spain. In contrast to my travelling I work a lot from home, which is good, since I am then really close to my family.When I work from home, most of my interactions are over the phone, Skype and via e-mail.

Q: How do you squeeze in time for your volunteer tasks?

A: It comes very naturally, for example, in conversations and interactions during industry conferences. I’m very proud of being a representative of Translators without Borders, so it’s easy for me to share my enthusiasm. Then I normally take a few hours a week to do some more active reach-outs.

Q: What do you consider are the challenges ahead for your role and for Translators without Borders?

A: The challenge is sustaining the contribution levels. It is one thing to convince a company to help our worthy cause, but it is harder to convince them to continue. For that reason, we need to share the good work that we do, so that donors are confident that we are making good use of the money. Another challenge is to make sure that we reach as many NGOs as possible with our free translations. Finally, Translators without Borders will eventually require some professional management and this requires funds. An all-volunteer global organization is not sustainable in the long run, in my opinion.

Q: What would you say to someone who is thinking about joining a cause like Translators without Borders?

A: Much has been said about the translation industry being immature. But, for me, the fact that the industry has a charity organization is a sign of maturity. It is the right thing to give something back to the same industry that feeds you. Language is a necessity and it is also a human right – the right to communicate and the right to understand. It’s easier to support a cause that you are passionate about, in our case: languages and translation.

Q: To what extent do your professional and personal goals come together with your volunteer work?

A: They go well hand in hand; I feel passionate about the translation and interpretation industry – it’s what I do for a living – so it comes natural for me to help the organization.

Q: Could you tell us a bit about teamwork and personal relationships with other members of Translators without Borders?

A: To start with, talking to Lori [Translators without Borders founder, Lori Thicke] is a power of injection; she always has good feedback to offer to you and your tasks. She is also warm and thankful and our interactions are always very enriching. In addition to that, I work with Rebecca Petras, Ulrich Henes, Markus Meisl, Françoise Henderson and many others. And, at every new conference, I get to know new people engaged in Translators without Borders from whom I learn a lot. It’s a very enthusiastic and engaged team!

Q: What do you feel is your greatest achievement within Translators without Borders and beyond Translators without Borders so far and what is your biggest dream in life?

A: I’m very proud of having brought many corporate sponsors to Translators without Borders only by sharing my own passion for the cause. And they are equally proud of supporting us! I try to make as many personal contacts as possible, and manage to make them support Translators without Borders through annual donations, since this is one of the things Translators without Borders needs right now. And sponsors take a lot of pride in that; you can see it in conferences, when meeting in person, at their websites and with their testimonials.

Becoming a mother is my biggest personal achievement in life and therefore my biggest dream is to see my two daughters grow up and become responsible, successful and happy individuals. I also hope to be healthy enough to travel, once I retire, for pleasure and to see for myself the result of different charity activities. But I guess I’ll have to work hard for a few more years first…

Target shooting…

In paper: Any book is good for me

On the web: Twitter

Open-air activity: downhill skiing, horseback riding

With friends: cooking, wining and dining

Family gathering: Swedish mid-summer festivities

Africa’s Translation Gap

For Hillary Clinton’s latest trip to Africa, she probably didn’t need to take along many translators or interpreters. Maybe just a French speaker. Of the nine countries on her itinerary, seven are considered Anglophone and two Francophone.

That, of course, does not tell the whole story—far from it. In one of those Anglophone countries, Nigeria, more than 500 languages are spoken.

It’s mainly the elite who speak these colonial languages. In Uganda, it’s English, in Senegal, French, in Mozambique, Portuguese. But most people—especially outside the big cities—don’t understand those languages.

That’s a huge problem for aid agencies trying to get the word out about disease prevention. The brochures, leaflets and posters they distribute tend to be written in those colonial languages.

Lori Thicke, who runs Translators without Borders, told me that she’s visited villages in Africa where you can find a plentiful supply of brochures about AIDS prevention. Many contain technical and sensitive information: how to practise safe sex, how to use a condom. But because the brochures are in written in European languages, it’s often the case that that the not a single villager understands them.

I also talked with Nataly Kelly of translation industry research group Common Sense Advisory. She co-authored a report for Translators without Borders on the state of the translation industry in Africa. You can hear our conversation in the podcast. The bottom line is that, aside from South Africa, no sub-Saharan African nation has much of a translation industry.

There are signs of change. Some African nations are starting to promote their indigenous languages. There’s a debate in Ghana about replacing English as the official language, or augmenting it, with one or more of the more prominent local languages.

The problem is, none of those local languages is spoken across Ghana. They’re regional, and so adopting one of those as the official language would give the impression of favoring a single linguistic and ethnic group.

In South Africa, there are eleven official languages That’s helped with the status of some of the less widely spoken ones, like Ndebele and Venda. It means that some official documents must be published in those languages. That raises their status and has spawned a translation industry—something that barely exists around minority languages elsewhere in Africa.

Many Africans speak two or more languages. In Cameroon, it’s not uncommon to find people who speak four or five languages. That’s led some outsiders to assume that Africa doesn’t have a translation deficit. But it does. Speaking a second language doesn’t automatically make you a translator.

You need training to be able to translate. You also need tools: dictionaries and glossaries of technical terms. And you need to be online to access them.

Translators without Borders has started a training program for translators in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. They’ve begun with Swahili. It’s the closest Africa has to its own link language, spoken now by an estimated 40 million people.

There’s also a Translators without Borders project that connects volunteer translators with Wikipedia and local mobile phone operators. The idea is to translate Wikipedia articles on AIDS, malaria and the like into local languages, and then make them accessible on people’s phones.

But it’s slow-going: Translators without Borders has only a handful of volunteers who know those African languages.

By Patrick Cox

TWB Translator Training Session in Nairobi, Kenya

Meet Translators without Borders trainees in Nairobi, Kenya.

When the trainees have finished this module, they will begin translating a healthcare application into Swahili that can then be accessed via cell phones.

Translating For Humanity

In response to the demand for pro bono translation services worldwide…

Founded 18 years ago in Paris by Lori Thicke (CEO of Lexcelera) and Ros Smith-Thomas (co-owner of Lexcelera), Traducteurs sans frontières was established as a charitable organization in France. The name Traducteurs sans frontières was selected because the organization’s first client was Médicins sans frontières/Doctors without Borders, the medical disaster-relief NGO (non-governmental organization) that later won the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize. In 2010, Lori Thicke founded Translators without Borders, a sister organization in the United States with non-profit 501©(3) status. Until fairly recently, Traducteurs sans frontières brokered pro bono translation services of approximately 1 million words per year to NGOs, representing about $250,000 of donated services per year. In 2011, however, with the foundation of Translators without Borders in the US, this number doubled, with 1 million words already translated as early as June; a 10-fold projected increase within the next few years was envisioned. (For the most up-to-date figures, see the counter displaying the number of translated words at theTWB Translation Center.)

For all languages

Translators without Borders is equipped to provide pro bono translation services in any language combination. For the first half of 2011, the highest demands were: French to English (34.6%), English to French (16.7%), English to Spanish (9.84%), English to Arabic (3.87%) and English to Russian (2.07%), with the balance (32.92%) consisting of another 40 language combinations, including English to Yoruba (0.33%), English to German (0.90%), English to Turkish (1.13%), English to Persian (1.13%)*.

Translators without Borders vets any NGO requesting its services. This means that all NGOs with which it works are verified in terms of their status as charitable and non-profit organizations. It also means that translators may rest assured that their pro bono services are received for legitimate non-profit causes. The requesting organizations are also vetted to ensure that they do not advocate extreme religious or political views. There are currently 53 NGOs registered with Translators without Borders, and the organization has the capacity to take on 100 more. (Browse the list of NGOs and their descriptions at the TWB Translation Center).

In the immediate aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, Translators without Borders partnered with ProZ.com, an online community of  professional translators and adopted their networking tools. Inundated with requests for translations in Haiti, where an international rescue effort was underway, Translators without Borders initially turned toProZ.com for more volunteer translators, and then to screen translators, because of the spectacular number of responses (800!) from the ProZ.com community of translators. Moving forward, this partnership, born in a crisis of catastrophic proportions, led to the development of the TWB Translation Center, an automated service and delivery platform, donated 100% by ProZ.com. It is this invisible technology quietly empowering Translators without Borders that explains the quantum leap in the number of pro bono translated words in response to an increased capacity to process NGO requests.

As Lori Thicke puts it:

“The idea is that with a huge pool of talented volunteers on one side, and an enormous demand from non-profits on the other, the only bottleneck is getting those two groups together. Our guiding principle has been that we don’t need to be in the middle of this process. All we need to do is set certain standards for both translators and charities then put the technology in place to help them work together.” (Lori’s blog, posted May 30, 2011)

At the end of the day

To become listed in the Translators without Borders database of translators, linguists are required to submit an application at the Translators without Borders website (click on Translators>How to volunteer). Only professional translators are finally admitted. Translators are then evaluated via the automated ProZ.com testing platform using a series of Translators without Borders tests that the translator selects in his or her area of specialization and language combinations. A committee of three Translators without Borders translators then evaluates the tests. Once accepted, the translator’s name is registered in the Translators without Borders database of translators, and the translator is supplied with a login ID and password to gain access to the NGO requests via the TWB Translation Center. Once a translation request is fulfilled, it is uploaded to the TWB Translation Center for delivery to the NGO and pick-up. The turnaround time for projects is slightly longer, because this is pro bono work and translators are not expected to spend their entire week on a project.

There are currently 640 approved translators in the Translators without Borders database, and many more have recently submitted test translations. (See the list with photos, and query the database by language combinations and fields of specialization at the TWB Translation Center.) During the month of June 2011 alone, 319 translators were active, translating a total of 186,926 words. Among the 319 active translators, the top 10 (most active) volunteer translators averaged 6186 words of donated translation services, with jobs ranging on average approximately 1000 to 1600 words. As Gail Desautels, Translators without Borders super-superstar with 25 jobs and 16771 words to her credit during the month of June 2011, puts it:

“…translating for TWB is the redemption in my day. Not only do I get to travel to countries around the world, but I can also say at the end of the day that I have done something very worthwhile.” (Gail Desautels, from a personal email communication, August 20, 2011)

Even if pro bono work hardly pays the rent, here is how the process completes for Corinne Durand, another Translators without Borders top contributor with 4 jobs and 6795 words to her credit for the month of June 2011:

“I had often wondered how to go about bringing my personal contribution to the relentless work of NGOs. TSB/TWB has provided me with a way to do it that fits perfectly both with my personal and professional life. Indeed, I feel very privileged to be allowed to make a little difference by doing something I love.” (Corinne Durand, from a personal email communication, August 21, 2011)

In many fields

The types of NGO translation requests span such domains as legal, medical, healthcare, epidemiology, educational, and agricultural, including the following kinds of requests: translation of eyewitness or awareness reports in conflict areas; documentation for a campaign against child labor; field reports on urban violence; NGO web pages (see, for example,Goodplanet.org); instructions manual for dealing with child trauma victims; manuals for childcare of orphans developed in collaboration with local professionals; requests for micro-funding, directions for coordinating international disaster-relief teams; medical training manuals; medical information for childbirth, childcare, and first aid instructions. Projects range from one page to several hundred, with the larger projects divided among several  volunteer translators so that no one is asked to translate more than 10 pages.

Translators without Borders clients i nclude Doctors without Borders, Action Against Hunger, Zafèn, Trickle up, Oxfam, QuakeSOS, Make-a-Wish, AIDES, Handicap International, Partners in Health, Fair Start Training, Medical Aid Films, and many more. During the month of June 2011, the most active organization was Zafèn (representing 28.57% of the TWB Translation Center activity), an organization that organizes micro-financing opportunities in Haiti.

The Translators without Borders motto is “Every dollar we save for an NGO is another dollar that can be spent caring for people in the field.” At a rate of 1 million words (valued at $250,000) each year for 17 years, and the capacity for a projected 10 million words per year, with the empowerment of ProZ.com technology, this is indeed “changing the world, one word at a time” and is truly an impressive feat on more counts than one.

To get involved

If you want to get involved… this is the place to start. Despite moving mountains, Translators without Borders barely covers 1% of the translation needs of NGOs. As Lori Thicke has pointed out, it is not only diseases that kill. The absence of information, or misinformation, is also a major killer—for example, when mothers believe they must withhold fluids in case of diarrhea,  when boiling milk becomes a cure for malaria, or when smoking is believed to be a cure for migraines and protection from stroke. The organization’s mission is to increase access to information through translation. As Lori puts it:

“The elephant in the access to information room is translation.” (Lori’sblog, posted May 16, 2011)

Stay tuned—because Translators without Borders has taken yet another step forward, securing funding to open, as early as February 2012, a Translation Training Center in Nairobi, in the Horn of Africa, that is designed to train healthcare translators. This center is envisioned as a pilot for future Translators without Borders training centers across the world “…wherever there is a devastating mix of extreme poverty, poor health and a non-existing translation infrastructure,” according to Simon Andriesen, Translators without Borders Board Member. This center is envisioned to fulfill some of the tremendous needs for translation in local languages: in Swahili, spoken by 5 to 10 million people as a first language and 100 million people as a second language, and in other local languages such as Maasai, Kikamba and Luo.

Similarly, stay tuned for more exponential ProZ.com community-building activity, linking professional service providers and the demand for services, since the pro bono TWB Translation Center has proved an extremely rigorous field test of ProZ.com technology and its amazing and beautiful capacity for vibrant empowerment.

Now, that’s worshipping Ganesh! **

*All statistics are courtesy of Enrique Cavalitto atProZ.com.

** Hindu deity—Remover of obstacles—represented as an elephant.

AT A GLANCE –  GUIDELINES FOR GETTING INVOLVED IN PRO-BONO TRANSLATION FOR HUMANITARIAN CAUSES

1. Translators without Borders (requires enrollment and registration to evaluate your credentials and capacities). This is the largest network of humanitarian translation opportunities and services. The non-profit status of the NGOs (non-government organizations) requesting translations, is verified, as well as their causes.

2. Work directly with an NGO or non-profit organization. In this case, verify the status of the requesting organization yourself with a non-profit watch organization such as Charity Navigator.

3. Regular translation agencies sometimes provide humanitarian translation services. In this case transparency is paramount and the best practice. Normally, if an agency accepts a pro bono translation project, it is the agency’s contribution and gift.

AT A GLANCE – HUMANITARIAN CAUSES IN 2011

Famine
Drought-stricken Horn of Africa—12.4 million people affected. (UN WFP)

Famine officially declared in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda with catastrophic proportions in Mogadishu.

Water & sanitation
Even without drought 300 to 500 million people in Africa do not have access to sanitation and safe drinking water. (UN WFP)

Japan: March 2011 Earthquake and tsunami resulting in a nuclear crisis—500,000 people homeless, 20,000 perished.

Haiti: Cholera epidemic following the 2010 earthquake that claimed 250,000 lives and displaced more than 1 million people. (PIH)

HIV/AIDS
40 million people estimated living with HIV worldwide, with 95% in developing countries, two-thirds in sub-Saharan Africa. (PIH)

Tuberculosis
Curable lung disease killing 2 million people each year. (PIH)

Childbirth & labor
1000 women die from childbirth or the complications of labor each day: 300 in Asia and 570 in Sub-Saharan Africa. (WHO- UNICEF)

Childhood
22,000 children estimated to die each day from preventable diseases. (UNICEF)

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks for the information they have so kindly supplied for this article in a series of phone conversations: Lori Thicke (CEO Lexcelera), co-founder of TSF and TWB, located in France & Simon Andriesen (CEO of Medilingua) located in Holland, TWB Board Member in charge of Operations, and Enrique Cavalitto, ProZ.com Manager, located in Argentina, in charge of the ProZ.com ”white label” technology for the TWB Translation Center.

WEBSITES:

TWB

TSF

Translation Center

Lori Thicke Co-founder of TSF/TWB 

Content Rules CEO Val Swisher Joins TWB Board of Directors

Swisher’s Appointment Highlights the Importance of Developing Global-Ready Content

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) June 20, 2012 – Content Rules, Inc. today announced that CEO Val Swisher has accepted an invitation to join Translators without Borders’ Board of Directors. As a general board member, Swisher will act as an advisor on future Translators without Borders projects.

Prior to her appointment, Swisher led several collaborative efforts between Content Rules and Translators without Borders, including developing a training course on “How to Write Using Simplified English” for a new team of translators in Nairobi.

Currently, Val and her team at Content Rules are working with Translators without Borders on the “Simple Wikipedia Project.” Throughout this 2+ year endeavor, a total of 80 medical articles posted on Wikipedia will be translated into simple English, which will enable the pages to be translated into many languages around the world.

“Val has already made a tremendous difference in our work in Africa so we are thrilled to welcome her to our board of directors,” says Lori Thicke, Co-Founder of Translators Without Borders. “With her passion and expertise in developing content that can be understood by people of all backgrounds, we look forward to having Val strengthen our impact.”

“As CEO of Content Rules, I have worked with many top companies such as PayPal to make “global readiness” content a priority. However, a personal goal of mine is to extend this concept to people all over the world who need simplified content the most,“ says Swisher. “Now with my involvement with Translators Without Borders, I am certain that creating better content to save lives will undoubtedly become a reality.”

Val Swisher earned her B.A. in Social Psychology and Music from Tufts University. She founded Content Rules in 1994 and under her leadership the company has grown to serve 200+ customers and encompass a network of 2,000+ technically-astute content developers. Val is a frequent speaker on how to create, standardize, and get your content ready for the demands of the global marketplace. Before starting Content Rules, Swisher held management positions at 3Com and SynOptics.

Val lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Greg, her son Max who blogs at Good Morning Geek, and frequently travels to Denver to visit her son Matthew.

About Content Rules
Formerly Oak Hill Corporation, Content Rules reduces the cost of globalizing your content, so you can expand your brands’ footprint into more markets. Implemented in the cloud, ContentRules™ IQ targets companies with an in-house team, reducing the cost of localizing content by up to 40% while enforcing control over content quality and brand standards. For those customers who don’t have an in-house team, Content Rules provides the people and expertise needed in four areas: technical documentation, training development, marketing collateral, and global readiness.

Translators without Borders opens Health Translators’ Training Center in Kenya

Translators Without Borders, a humanitarian organization providing free translations, opens a training school in Nairobi, Kenya. Simon Andriesen, TWB Board Member, talks about the opening and the organization’s mission.

The 2nd of April was a special day for Translators without Borders. On that day, after much preparation, Translators without Borders (TWB) opened its pilot Health Translators’ Training Center in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. During three to four-day sessions over four weeks, six groups of participants were introduced to translation, and more specifically to translation of health information. In all, 100 participants took part in the April sessions. Based on the experiences, the program is being revised and modified before returning to Kenya in August.

The participants had widely varying backgrounds, from health librarians to government employees working in the field on Health Promotion, from youth workers to dispensary staff and community health workers, and from peer educators to hospital interpreters. What they had in common was an affinity with public health promotion and a strong interest in language.

Translators without Borders is known for facilitating the work that professional translators volunteer to do for humanitarian organizations, such as Doctors without Borders, using a web-based platform generously developed, donated, and managed by ProZ. In 2011, TWB helped translate over three million words, with a ‘street value’ of around $600,000. This in itself is already a sizable donation but, more importantly, translation can be of life-saving importance to millions of people with poor health, no doctors around, and health information all in the wrong language. These populations typically live in poor areas, and studying a language is not something many people can afford to do. Even so, many people in Africa speak three to five different languages. In Kenya, for example, people with at least some education often speak English and Swahili, languages taught at school, as well as one, or a few, of the 42 local languages spoken at home. Swahili is spoken by around 75 million people, across 9 countries in East Africa, mostly as a lingua franca. This language area covers a territory with at least 200 different local languages.

Most of the health information available in Kenya is available in English only even though half of the population does not speak English. Translation in Swahili would already be a big step forward, but it would be much better to translate vital health information into the local languages.

There are many tragic examples of what may happen if people do not have access to health information in a language they understand. But one story I always keep in the back of my mind is about a one-year-old girl who died after a few days of diarrhea. The mother commented she had stopped feeding the girl water ‘because it immediately came out at the other end and that way it never stops.’ As many people know, in the treatment of diarrhea it is crucial to feed the patient lots of water, to prevent dehydration, which if untreated will lead to shock and, ultimately, death. The person telling us this dreadful story mentioned that the parents had in fact clean water, sugar and salt in their house, and these are the only things you need to treat diarrhea. The parents simply did not know. Yet it takes only one quarter of an A4 sheet of paper to print the instructions around diarrhea, and maybe 20 minutes of work for a translator.

At TWB we decided that we no longer accept that people would suffer, or die, because of a language obstacle. We understood that the platform would not be enough to reach some populations because there were simply not enough translators working into certain languages. We prepared plans to train health information translators. As a member of TWB’s Board of Directors, I volunteered to make the training package available that my company had developed to train medical translators. This package is written for experienced, professional translators, who need to be introduced to medical translation. When looking at the materials, I quickly realized that the assumed level of background and education was simply not realistic, and I then decided to start from scratch and regenerate all materials. A new feature was a half day introductory module on what translation is, and more specifically what medical translation, or rather: healthcare translation is all about. This module includes translation methods, tips and tricks, an introduction to TM tools, and on how to build and maintain a glossary – all very basic information. I also integrated information on the difference between translation and interpretation, and produced an introduction to subtitling, and instructions about word count and spell checking, as well as on how to Skype and how to use search engines.

The medical component of the training package consists of around 20 introductions to Africa-relevant health problems. These are mostly disorders, such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and cholera, but also social health issues, such as malnutrition, unsafe abortion, and female genital mutilation (FGM). Each of these medical modules takes 30-45 minutes to teach and most of these are followed by an exercise: participants each translate a few sentences from a related health information sheet and the results are projected on the screen and then discussed by the whole group. This is a very powerful education method and participants really seem to learn a lot from these discussions. During the training, it was remarkable to watch people who had never translated before behave like typical translators in having heated debates about the meaning of a specific word, or the proper location of a comma.

For one group of trainees we travelled half a day to the part of Kenya where the Masaai live. For a group of 12 school teachers, a social worker, dispensary staff and a community health worker, we focused on the translation of materials about specific disorders, for example trachoma, an infectious eye disease that will lead to blindness if not treated. We used an empty school class room. The dedication and motivation of the Masaai participants was overwhelming. One of the projects we worked on was the translation of subtitles into Maa of a health video on cholera prevention. This is probably the first ever video with Maa subtitles!

We also attracted quite a bit of press interest: The Voice of America followed us one day and did a radio and television piece on the training; the Guardian carried an interesting article about us; and, we took the BBC World Service along to the Masaai training.

The Translators without Borders Healthcare Translation Training Center is partly funded by TWB, partly by earmarked donations, and partly by involved TWB Board Members. Whenever I claim ‘that we no longer accept that people would suffer, or die, because of a language obstacle,’ I would like to think that I speak on behalf of the whole localization sector. Companies that want to support our work can do so. They can become TWB sponsors or they can adopt part of our efforts in Kenya. To train a translator for three weeks costs around $400; a PC and a decent set of dictionaries costs around $300. Throw in an extra $300 and the translator has one year of unlimited internet access.

Small amounts. Huge effects. Think about the baby that died not of diarrhea but of lack of information. Keep her in mind. And then just visit www.translatorswithoutborders.com and hit the Donate button.

By Simon Andriesen, Board President of TWB Kenya and CEO of MediLingua

Subtitles for Mothers in India from Translators without Borders

Translators without Borders volunteer Leandro Reis is leading a project to subtitle health films into over a dozen Indian languages including Telugu, Gujarati and Kannada. These films, created by the Mother and Child Health and Education Trust, will encourage hospitals and community health workers to teach new mothers about breastfeeding their babies.

His subtitling work is being carried out on the dotSUB.com platform.

Why is this so important? Because each day 11,000 babies die in the developing world from preventable causes. Of those who die, 22 percent could survive if their mothers had better knowledge about breastfeeding.

Thanks to the volunteers you see here, and many others, Translators without Borders is working to ensure that in the future, mothers in India will know how to keep their babies healthy. Read more here.