Warm feedback received from Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland

Warm feedback received from Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland upon delivery of an editing job in English performed by volunteer Alison Jenner:

“Dear Alison,
I’m quoting hereafter the feedback received from the person in charge of our Annual Review of Medical Activities:
“Thank you very much to the editor for her excellent work on the editing of the RMPs article. That was not an easy task given the complexity of the situation described. The help of the editor was therefore very precious for us and very appreciated. A warm thank you ! Anne Kerisel” 

Wishing you a very nice day and with warm regards,
Lydia Sonderegger - MSF Switzerland “

Dying for Lack of Knowledge By Cheryl Rettig

Research clearly shows that people prefer to buy products and services in their own languages.1 This is the reason that so many businesses have undertaken translation and localization projects to transform their websites and documents from English into the native language(s) of their target markets. This seems like a pretty basic concept, but unfortunately, one that has not been adopted by many non-governmental organisations (NGOs) attempting to provide information that has the potential to save millions of lives 

For many years, numerous NGOs in Africa have been producing materials largely in English or French, based on the assumption that everyone now speaks the  languages once imposed by colonial administrations. The result of this logic is that many documents, manuals, reports, websites, posters and pamphlets are often in a language that many people can’t understand. This mistaken belief – that everyone in Africa speaks English or French (and to a lesser extent Portuguese) – has significantly reduced the effectiveness of numerous projects, including disaster relief, education, nutrition and gender equality programmes. There are many people across Africa who speak neither English nor French, and if they do, it is often their third or fourth language. The people who do speak English or French fluently often comprise the elite minority who are highly educated and live in urban areas. But the majority of Africans live in more rural areas where local languages and dialects are often spoken.2

Read more »

See what languages Translators without Borders translate to/from for humanitarian causes

Translators without Borders is working with FHOK to translate information into the languages used in Kibera.

Our founder, Lori Thicke, with Peter from FHOK and board member Andrew Bredenkamp.

Translators without Borders: one million words posted so far in 2012

The humanitarian organizations operating with Translators without Borders posted for translation 282,918 words in April and a total of 1,005,281 words during the first 4 months of 2012. This represents a 52% increase with respect to the 663K words received during the first 4 month of 2011.

A heartfelt thank you to the worthy volunteers that make these achievements possible!

Four of our volunteers praised by the Fundación Infantil Ronald McDonald

Four of our volunteers praised by the Fundación Infantil Ronald McDonald

The Fundación Infantil Ronald McDonald helps families with sick kids. In Spain they specialize in providing “a home far from home” for the families of children who are seriously ill or demand log term medical treatment far away from their familiar home.

A set of their communication tools was recently translated into French within the framework of Translators without Borders by the volunteers JacquelineG, Sophie Le Paih, Clara MESCHIA and
Agnès Bourdin. On behalf of the client, Vicente Moros provided the following feedback:

“Thanks a lot to all of you, I am very happy with your work! This is our first experience as users of the services of Translators without Borders and I was impressed by how professional, fast and effective your work was. I thank you from the bottom of my heart and I am sure the families who come to our Ronald McDonald homes with their sick children will do the same. You have a special place among the collaborators of our Home. Vicente.”

Once again, thanks a lot to our valuable volunteers for your generosity and professionalism!

Enrique

Translators fight the fatal effects of the language gap

by Mark Tran

Volunteers translating health messages from English into local languages are providing a vital service for NGOs and freeing up millions of extra dollars to be used for medical aid.

Lori Thicke had an epiphany in Thange in eastern Kenya when she saw Aids orphans playing in front of posters with advice on Aids prevention. “The posters carried excellent advice, but they were in English, a language that people didn’t understand,” she said.

What was the use of this information provided by well-meaning NGOs, she wondered, if the people they were trying to reach could not read English. “People are delivering aid every day in Africa in English, French and Portuguese,” said Thicke. “That is fine for the educated elite, but they don’t need aid. It is the parents among the poor who need the information on symptoms of malaria.”

She saw the fatal effects of the language gap in India too, where mothers could have saved their children from dying from diarrhoea if they had followed the simple advice on health brochures and leaflets.

Thicke, a Canadian who came to Paris to write the great Canadian novel but founded a translation company instead, had pinpointed a glaring but little-noticed paradox in the information revolution. Thanks to the internet and mobile phones, knowledge and information is disseminated far and wide and at speed. But that knowledge is wasted unless understood by those who need it most.

Translators without Borders was founded by Thicke and Ros Smith-Thomas in 1993 after Médecins sans Frontières, the medical NGO, asked her company, Lexcelera, to work on a translation project. She asked if they needed translation often, and if giving them the words for free would be like a donation. They said yes to both questions, and TWB was born. But until that moment in Kenya two years ago, the group dealt mostly with European languages. Now Thicke is determined to bridge what she calls the “language last mile” in the developing world.

One of the group’s current projects is to teach sex workers in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, to translate material in English on sexually transmitted diseases into languages such as Swahili, Luo and Kikuyu. The project started last week, with Simon Andriesen, a specialist on medical translation who is on the TWB board. He will teach about 125 women from Kibera, who speak different languages, to translate four-page brochures in English into the different Kenyan languages.

“He is teaching them translation skills so they can reach their own people,” said Thicke. “All the girls from Kibera represent different languages. They have been recommended to us by a health NGO and their job is to pass on information to other girls. We want to provide brochures in a language that can be understood so it doesn’t get thrown away.”

Paul Warambo, a recent masters graduate in the Kiswahili language living in Nairobi said: “The health translators training has come at a time when the country urgently needs translators in every sector, but especially in the health sector where little information is available in languages that can be understood by the majority of Kenyans.”

TWB is working on an even more ambitious project with Wikipedia. The aim is to take Wikipedia entries on the most important health topics, turn them into simple English and then translate them into as many languages as possible. The articles will then be accessible for free on mobile phones through new agreements betweek Wikimedia, which runs Wikipedia, and telecoms operators. A number of Wikipedia articles covering dengue fever, Aids, malaria, cholera and tuberculosis are awaiting translation from TWB’s army of volunteers.

The group has about 2,000 translators, who have passed its translation tests. Indian languages are well served but Africa is a big gap, with only about 15 of TWB’s translators able to deal with African languages. Africa has more than 2,000 different languages, such as Amharic, Swahili and Berber, spread across six major language families. Nigeria alone has more than 500 tongues spoken within its borders.

Until the 2010 Haiti earthquake, TWB had limited reach. But the crisis revealed not only the need for translations from thousands of aid groups that need humanitarian translations but also a critical mass of translators willing to help.

So the group created an online platform to bring the two communities together. Last year, ProZ.com, the world’s largest translator organisation, created an automated translation centre for TWB so it could broaden its reach. Approved NGOs can now post translation projects such as field reports, treatment protocols and websites. Alerts then go out to the translators in those language pairs. Those who are interested in the work of that particular NGO will take on a project, translate it, and return it to the platform for delivery. Most of the projects are picked up within 15 minutes.

Translators without Borders can easily handle projects for 100 non-profits at a time, but as its volunteer community grows, so does its capacity. Over the years, it has donated almost $3m in translation services, which means that money went towards medical supplies, vaccines, rehydration kits and more.

“We are working to build a world where knowledge doesn’t have borders,” Thicke said. “With technology, and cellphone penetration in Africa, we have the potential to spread knowledge, but no one is talking about how people are getting information even if they are connected. People die not just of disease but from a lack of knowledge on how to avoid getting sick.”

Translators without Borders is just a step away from starting up a training program for healthcare translators in Kenya. And your help is needed! Please keep reading and you will find some suggestions about how you can contribute to this very important project.

Lack of African Healthcare Translators
Translators without Borders’ core role is to facilitate the work professional translators donate tohumanitarian organizations. And for most languages this works very well. In 2011, we provided around 2.5 million words to more than 70 NGOs. However, for a number of target languages we have found there are not any, or at least very few, translators available. One of these languages is Swahili, spoken (mostly as a lingua franca) by around 100 million people across nine countries in East Africa. This language area ‘covers’ hundreds of smaller languages (there are 42 languages in Kenya alone!). To remedy this problem, especially for healthcare information, we designed a healthcare translators’ training program that we will roll out in Kenya.

Why is translation in African languages important? In our visits to Africa we have discovered that people who don’t speak a European language - 70-80 percent of the population - cannot understand critical knowledge that they need to keep themselves and their families healthy. According to the former head of UNICEF, most of the children who die in Africa die not of diseases, but because of lack of knowledge. We aim to change that by building local capacity to translate critical health information so it can be understood by the people who need this information the most.

Translators without Borders warmly welcomed!
During a recent fact-finding trip we discussed our plans with the Kenyan Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation. They warmly welcomed the initiative and immediately offered us a 150 square meter training location, walking distance from the Kenyatta National Hospital, the largest hospital in East Africa. We also spoke with many local organizations, doctors, and community healthcare workers and learned the following:

• There is indeed a shortage of healthcare translators.
• English documents, brochures and flyers are useless for many people as they don’t speak English.
• Translated materials will definitely save time for overburdened doctors, nurses, and community healthcare workers informing people about their health (or condition), and trying to prevent disease.

We also found out that translation into Swahili alone is not enough; translation training is needed for at least ten of the other Kenyan languages.

The training program
The training program is based on the MediLingua course ‘Medical-Pharmaceutical Translation’, but rewritten for people who do not need to be trained in complex matters such as how to translate extremely technical surgeons’ instructions, and also for people who are mostly new to translation. Starting this spring we will train a variety of people to translate simple but crucial healthcare information on Africa-relevant topics, including infectious diseases, STDs, reproductive health, malaria, family planning, unsafe abortions, and female genital mutilation. The introductory training will include basic modules such as:

• What is translation?
• How to build glossaries
• How to find background information
• How to deal with new terms and write clearly
• Introduction to interpretation
• How to translate and subtitle videos

read more http://translatorswithoutborders.com/newsletters/201203/07African_update.html

How can you help?
If you live in Kenya and you feel you can assist us in training people in one of the 42 local languages, please let us know. 
If you feel you have an excellent command of Swahili and/or other Kenyan languages, we would appreciate your skills in reviewing the trainees’ work and/or mentoring one or more of the trainees.

Of course, if you can’t do any of this but you want to support us, we desperately need funding. TWB is a volunteer organization, but that does not mean we don’t have expenses running the center. It is not much: we really only need $5,000 (or €4,000) a month to finance the center. Please help us set up this very important center.

Visit the Translators’ without Borders website to find instructions about how you can donate!

Author: Simon Andriesen
Board Member
simon.andriesen@medilingua.com

March 9, 2012 - News from the Translation Center

* Earlier this week the counter of translated words delivered by out volunteers through the Translation Center since January 2011 moved beyond the 3,000,000 mark, and it currently indicates 3,029,377 words translated.

* 47,000 words have been posted in the Translation Center so far during March and, as usual, top pairs are French to English (30%) and English to French (23%).

* Translators without Borders is looking for humanitarian NGOs in need of translation outside these two language pairs. If you know of any please pass the word.

How Translation Can Help Eliminate Information Disparities in Africa by Nataly Kelly

“Access to information is a basic human right,” said former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, according to the World Bank Institute, at a conference on the subject last year in Accra, Ghana.   Information is also power, and more and more organizations are recognizing that it will play an essential role in Africa’s future. Having access to information enables people to do things like take care of their health, understand their rights, start businesses, and participate in political processes.

When it comes to information access, most of the discussions are about the delivery systems such as mobile phones, which in many parts of Africa are the computing devices of choice. Obviously, getting information into people’s hands is critical. But what good is it if they cannot understand that information once they receive it? Africa is home to more than 2,000 different languages spread across six major language families – Nigeria alone has more than 500 tongues spoken within its borders.  Some of them – such as Amharic, Berber, Hausa, Igbo, Oromo, Swahili, and Yoruba – are used by tens of millions of people. Read more; http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/Default.aspx?Contenttype=ArticleDetAD&tabID=63&Aid=2164&moduleId=390

March 2, 2012 - News from the Translation Center

* During February 2012 a total of 25 NGO clients created 91 translation requests in Translators without Borders’ Translation Center. These work orders included a total of 189 files and 252,672 words in 33 language pairs.

* Top language pairs in February were for the first time Spanish to English and English to Spanish, due to the activity of newly added humanitarian NGOs based in Spain. Translators without Borders still has a lot of potential for growing, especially in English to Spanish, so NGOs with needs in this pair are especially welcome. The next top language pairs were English to French, Spanish to French, Portuguese to English and French to English.

* Top NGO client during February was the newly arrrived Acción contra el Hambre (España), followed by Fair Start, GoodPlanet, Médecins Sans Frontières (Switzerland) and Médecins du Monde.

* Top translator during February was Marisa Raich (8,064 words) followed by Mariana Solanet (7,228 words), Ildiko Santana (7,224 words), marina hennies (6,492 words) and wilkio123 (6,297 words).

* During the first two month of 2012 our translators accepted a total of 530,831 words (yes, over half a million words!) in 37 language pairs, including translations to Malayalam, Marathi, Panjabi, Tamil and Telugu.

* Top translators for the first two month of 2012 were Stephaniegobley (10,570 words), Nellie K. Adaba (10,473 words), JacquelineG (10,296 words), Prof. Angie G. (9,997 words) and marie britton (8,752 words). Congratulations to these and many other heroes that work silently to make the world a better place!

Want to End Poverty and Save Lives? Translate!

During all those years I spent “almost giving” I imagined myself serving food in a refugee camp, or teaching children in an orphanage. I never dreamed that my own métier – translation – could actually be a key to ending poverty and saving lives.   

The thing is, knowledge is incredibly powerful. Knowledge ensures better health and longer lives, it reduces maternal mortality, it empowers women, it saves children from dying unnecessarily, it improves economic opportunities, it lifts people out of poverty, it encourages protection of the environment…     

Oh wait, aren’t those the Millennium Development Goals?

Translation is essential to meeting all eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

Translators without Borders  is supporting the Millennium Development goals.

 Few people make this connection, but in fact, without translation how can there be global access to knowledge? And without global access to knowledge, how can the Millennium Goals be met to reduce poverty, maternal mortality, childhood deaths and AIDS? How will we ensure universal access to education,  environmental sustainability, global partnership and the empowerment of women?

We believe all people deserve access to knowledge

Translators without Borders is working tirelessly to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from one language to another by creating and managing a community of NGOs who need translations and professional, vetted translators who volunteer their time to help.

February 16, 2012 - News from the Translation Center

February 16, 2012 - News from the Translation Center
* Solthis is a humanitarian NGO whose primary goal is to increase the access to antiretroviral treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries. After receiving a translation from French to English performed by Jenn Mercer and Jennifer Baldwin, Solthis’ contact Magali Mevellec reported “our team in Paris and in Freetown wanted to let you know we really appreciated your help and your expertise on this urgent task. the translators worked fast and efficiently. 

* The excellent page on the Rehydration project http://rehydrate.org/ by The Mother and Child, Health and Education Trust include the following message: “The work of Translators without Borders is of crucial importance for the success of humanitarian projects. Information available in the local language is much more effective than in a foreign language. This is true for engineering and construction projects (such as digging water wells), and agricultural projects (such as how to irrigate the land). But it is particularly important in healthcare. In many areas in the world people do not only die from diseases, but also from the fact that they do not have basic information about how to stay healthy and what to do to prevent disease.” 

* 36 translation requests have been posted in February so far by 15 humanitarian NGOs. There work orders covered 77 files in 13 different language pairs and represented a total of 115,758 words. Top NGO in February so far has been Acción contra el Hambre (España), followed by Médecins Sans Frontières (Switzerland). 

* Several Wikipedia articles on health care and medicine have been translated into simple English as a solidary contribution from the company Content Rules. In the next day Translators without Borders will start looking for “language owners”, expert medical translators willing to act as referents and editors in the corresponding target languages for the project that will translate these articles into many non-English languages. http://rehydrate.org/

February 2, 2012 - News from the Translation Center

February 2, 2012 - News from the Translation Center

* During January 2012 the Translators without Borders accepted 104 translation requests representing a total of 183 files and 278,159 words. As a reference, during January 2010 our NGO clients had requested the translation of only 37,592 words. 

* Top NGO clients in January were Médecins Sans Frontières from Switzerland (38,086 words), Global Health Trials (34,281 words), Oxfam America (31,237 words), Handicap International (29,570 words) and GoodPlanet (27,864 words). These five clients represented 58% of the total of words accepted. 

* Top language pair was English to French with 95,686 words, representing 34.4% of the total. Next in line came French to English (52,114 words, 18.74%), English to Spanish (35,244 words, 12.67%), Spanish to French (15,773 words, 5.67%) and English to Portuguese (14,830 words, 5.33%). 

* The first two language pairs represented more than half of the words. Translators without Borders has extra capacity for helping new NGOs working in other pairs, especially English into Spanish. 

* Top translators during January were Stephanie Gobley (10,570 words), Nellie K. Adaba (10,473 words), Fraeyja 8553 words), Prof. Angie G. 7668 words) and Idoia Echenique (7345 words).

Thanks so much to everyone who supported us at Networking Days Athens!