{"id":2795,"date":"2019-10-03T02:08:49","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T02:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.translatorswithoutborders.org\/blog\/?p=2795"},"modified":"2024-08-22T14:28:33","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T14:28:33","slug":"on-the-ground-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-language-support-can-help-earn-peoples-trust-in-the-ebola-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/translatorswithoutborders.org\/blog\/on-the-ground-in-the-democratic-republic-of-congo-language-support-can-help-earn-peoples-trust-in-the-ebola-response\/","title":{"rendered":"On the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo: language support can help earn people\u2019s trust in the Ebola response"},"content":{"rendered":"

The communication challenges between communities and responders aiming to stop the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo are deep. Until a few weeks ago, I had only a faint understanding of the reasons behind them. I knew that the linguistic diversity of the area meant <\/span>information about Ebola is not fully understood<\/span><\/a>, even among the relatively well-educated population of Goma. Since landing in Goma and being confronted with a hand-washing station and vaccination poster even before I could go through immigration, I started to gain more insight.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Developing the resources and capacities to communicate effectively with people at risk is a challenge in itself. Yet, a bigger challenge is getting responders to pay more attention to language to earn the trust of people through meaningful two-way communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been over a year, and the outbreak has not yet been controlled. People\u2019s fear of an indiscriminate disease and a medical process that can be intimidating are still affecting responders\u2019 ability to provide care in outbreak areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter how effective prevention measures and treatment are, if people don\u2019t trust or understand them, they will not use them. <\/span><\/h3>\n

Communication in the languages of people at risk can help ensure comprehension and establish trust. That is why TWB has deployed a team to eastern DRC to provide language support across the Ebola response. Improving understanding of the language dynamics affecting the response and building the capacity of responders to communicate with communities, in their languages, are ambitious tasks.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We use language assessments to identify where breakdowns in comprehension and translation problems are happening. Together with a team of local linguists and partner organizations like IRC, IFRC, and UNICEF, we then identify language solutions to improve existing communication strategies and materials.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To support field staff and community mobilizers, we are developing tools to improve their understanding of key concepts and multilingual communication skills. Research by the Groupe de recherche en sciences sociales (GRSS) has found important knowledge gaps among health workers, impeding their capacity to inform community members. We will also train speakers of the relevant local languages to provide translation and interpreting services across the response. This will have the added benefit of building translation capacity in local languages for future needs.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I fear that getting responders to focus on language as a key component of communications will be more difficult than providing high quality language support. <\/span><\/p>\n

Language is still too often an afterthought.<\/span><\/h3>\n

As my colleague Aimee Ansari said in an op-ed last year,<\/span> language intersects with everything humanitarians do<\/span><\/a>. Meaningful two-way communication fulfills a vital function in a crisis like this Ebola outbreak. It\u2019s as pivotal as providing health services.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In this response, a lot depends on whether the many responding aid organizations prioritize the languages of affected people. It\u2019s critical that organizations mobilize the appropriate resources to fill the persistent communication gaps across the response. It\u2019s not good enough to assume that people don\u2019t face language barriers or to expect field staff to address them with little or no support.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The gravity of the outbreak and an agreement to improve community engagement may provide the traction for a more language-aware approach to stop Ebola. That can show that responders are here to listen, understand, and provide trustworthy information and services to help people protect themselves and their families from the disease.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the challenges, our team is determined to help make this happen. You can do so too by:<\/span><\/p>\n