TRANSLATORS WITHOUT BORDERS HONORS VOLUNTEERS, DONORS AND NON-PROFIT PARTNERS WITH FIRST ACCESS TO KNOWLEDGE AWARDS
Global translation charity, Translators without Borders (TWB) announced the launch of its annual Translators withoutBorders Access to Knowledge Awards. The awards, honoring six individuals or organizations who exemplify the mission to translate for humanity, are chosen and given by the non-profit’s board of directors.
“We have had an exceptional year of progress and success,” said Lori Thicke, president and founder of Translators without Borders. “Reaching 6.5 million words translated through our workspace, opening our first training center in Nairobi, working with Wikipedia on critical health information—none of this would be possible without the generous support of our donors, the dedication of our volunteers, and the commitment of our non-profit partners.”
The organization created the Access to Knowledge Awards to honor volunteers, donors, and non-profit partners. The awards are given within each of the Translators without Borders’ six ‘pillars’, identified earlier this year as part of the organization’s strategic framework. These pillars—Organizational Excellence, Translator Community and Workspace, Training, Nonprofit Partnerships, Financial Sustainability, Awareness and Communications—work together to deliver the mission.
7 Million Words to Charity from Translators without Borders
Translators without Borders volunteers have donated over 7 million words of translation to charity. What a remarkable achievement! Congratulations and thanks to our volunteers for their time and dedication!
Translation saves lives in Africa
63% of African translators surveyed told us that having translated health information would have saved the life of one of their friends or family members. Translation is really important - and so is the work you are all doing to make information available in your languages.
If you haven’t already signed up as a volunteer, you can sign up here:http://translatorswithoutborders.org/Volunteers
HOW TEXTPARTNER GOT ON THEIR BIKES TO FUND-A-TRANSLATOR!
Translation vendor, TextPartner has raised $2,000 for Translator’s without Borders (TWB) Fund-a-Translator Program. TextPartner is the first organization to raise money for this exciting new TWB program.
The team at TextPartner cycled a total of 440kms from their branch office inKatowice,Polandto the recent ELIA conference inBudapest.
“The journey took 4 days, through some of the most beautiful scenery inEurope.” Said Marek Gawrysiak, Cyclist and Operations Manager at TextPartner. “Through people sponsoring us, we raised $2,000 for TWB’s Fund-a-Translator Program. This is enough to sponsor two Kenyan Trainee translators. As well as raising money, we had a great time and hope to repeat this next year.”
TWB’s Fund-a-Translator Program is part of theTWBHealthcareTrainingCenterinNairobi,Kenya. The Program invests funds and resources in local professionals to train as translators, building local language and translation skill.
“This bike ride was an awesome effort!” saidLori Thicke, President and co-founder of TWB, “The team at TextPartner did a great job and we now have the funds to start training 2 translators at the TWB center inNairobi. To train local translators, we need to maintain a physical location, hire local instructors and manage technology and Internet access for the trainees. This all needs funds and TextPartner has really kick-started the effort.”
Donate $1 to Translators without Borders by playing Moravia game
Moravia, a Gold Sponsor of Translators without Borders, is inviting everybody to play a game for the holidays, and they will donate $1 to TWB for everyone who plays it.
http://apps.facebook.com/moravia-game/
Please spread the word!
Thanks to everybody who walked, jogged or ran to support Translators without Borders at the Nordic Translation Industry Forum 2012!
More images at the TextPartner sp.j.’s page.: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=407573229313156&set=a.407572815979864.92546.101510179919464&type=3&theater
Cholera outbreak in Congo
Translators without Borders can help NGOs with translations into Swahili to combat cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Please contact our NGO coordinator http://translatorswithoutborders.org/Contacts
Dear dedicated friends and volunteers of Translators without Borders
Dear dedicated friends and volunteers of Translators without Borders,
Around this time of the year, many people, myself included, reflect on the past 12 months and think of how to give back for all we have received.
Translators without Borders has a lot to be thankful for this year. Through the generous support of our sponsors and donors, and the hard work of thousands of volunteers, we hit a new record in September: Five million words translated for humanitarian causes. Then, just one month later, we reached six million words! That amounts to $1.2 million for our non-profit clients, money that they roll back into their programs.
But we have much more to do. This year we ask that you consider a gift to Translators without Borders as part of your holiday giving. With your gift we can give more people the right to information in their mother tongue. In 2013 we hope to increase annual translated content to 10 million words, plus:
Provide translated healthcare information for community health workers throughout East Africa.
Increase the number of mother and child health videos we transcribe in India, and get them distributed in major languages throughout the world.
Translate more critical medical Wikipedia articles into worldwide languages and distribute on mobile devices.
Solving Stubborn Health Issues Worldwide – Translation is a Key Ingredient by Rebecca Petras
A guest blog from Rebecca Petras
The office of the United Nations in Kenya is focused on healthcare issues in East Africa. A tweet this week from the Twitter handle of the office’s director, Aeneas C. Chuma, lamented ongoing health issues among mothers in Kenya: “Maternal health has not improved in Kenya over the last decades. Time to leverage the private sector for results on MDG5 (Millennium Development Goal 5, Maternal Health)!”
Meanwhile, CNN is discussing another lingering issue in Kenya and East Africa: childhood stunting. More than 2 million children in Kenya alone suffer from stunting; 180 million worldwide. A recent episode of Christine Amapour’s show on the network featured the head of UNICEF, Anthony Lake, who explained that the problem can easily be dealt with better nutrition and education.
These are just two recent examples of major non-governmental organizations talking about the stubborn problems of East Africa that continue to hold the region back despite strong growth outlooks. While journalists like to talk about the African Century and the incredible economic opportunities on the continent, we are still hearing about health issues that need to be fixed for that growth to reach its true potential. And, most frustratingly, these are issues that can be fixed with simple communication of critical information.
Translators without Borders and changing the world
Posted
Sometimes I get really discouraged about all the stuff that’s wrong with the human race… the arguing, the senseless violence, the control-freak posturing and the corruption in every direction. Why don’t people see how stupid all of that is? Why don’t they listen more, put themselves in the shoes of their fellow human beings, try to do better?
Well, the thing is, they do. For every act of senseless violence, there is an act of selfless love. You know, the mom who gets up to take care of her crying baby — not because she has to, but because she wants to. The man who stops to change a stranger’s tire. The couple who offers hospitality to a foreigner. Naturally, the larger and more public any of these acts get, the more likely it is that corruption will find them, too; that they will be done for show rather than for mercy. And perhaps it’s impossible to really and truly do anything selfless. As they say, virtue is its own reward, and that great feeling you get when you’ve done something good is a measurable emotional return on investment.
Our New Swahili Translators
In this issue we introduce two of our translator trainees from our new Healthcare Translators’ Training Center in Nairobi, Kenya. Our hard-working team in Kenya, led by Paul Warambo and Simon Andriesen, is translating vital health information and subtitling videos while also learning how to become professional translators. This is an important step in building a professional translation network in Swahili and beyond. If you would like to help support the effort to increase language capacity into Swahili and other critical languages, please consider sponsoring a translator this holiday season through our Fund-a-Translator program. Details by emailing rebecca@translatorswithoutborders.org.
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.
1 – 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.
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.
TextPartner cycles from Poland to Budapest to raise money for new Fund-a-Translator Program
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 fromPoland 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!
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