Community Based Translations

The question of how to bridge language and cultural divides in multilingual countries or regions has been a challenge since time immemorial. This question is especially important for community understanding and development. One such region is East Africa and the Sub-Saharan region where the population speaks a plethora of languages, everything from local languages to the old colonial languages which are now in ample use.
A new blog platform called Maneno has been created targeted for this region which has an interface which is supported by a wide-based community translation effort. This blog enables the publication of a post in multiple languages. Currently it can be read in English, Spanish, Swahili and Portuguese.
The translation is done by the community of people.

Corporate outreach to Hispanic Students

Language can be a barrier to higher education, especially for minority groups. Such is the case of Hispanics in the USA that see dwindling number of enrollments in technology and science majors in US universities.
IBM has launched an initiative to ameliorate the problems that Spanish speakers face when interfacing with higher education. IBM has an Internet program called ¡TradúceloAhora! that it has offered to be used in several universities at no cost to help students and their parents to translate email communications.
In addition, some universities in Arizona, California and Texas have begun offering another IBM program designed to mentor Hispanic students called Cascade Mentoring Program which involves IBM employees and others as mentors for young Hispanics.

International Service Award for Serving as Translators

It has crossed my mind, more than once, that translators have a natural gift to give back to their communities. Can you imagine how many conflicts arise out of missunderstandings due to language and cultural differences? I don't think this has been systematically researched, but my guess is that it is not a negligable number. History is littered with such incidents.

I read today that a junior in Princeton University will be honored with the 2008 International Service Award presented by the Davis International Center. Tashfin Samiul Huq, a Bangladesh student majoring in Biology, will be presented with the award as a recognition to his dedication to cross-cultural humanitarian endeavors. Mr. Huq has helped establish a NGO dedicated to raising the awareness of Bangladeshis to combat AIDS and protect the environment.

This is a small example of what we translators can do to uplift our communities. For a long time, the thought has crossed my mind to create an organization called Translators Without Borders. Perhaps, if you are reading this post, this idea sounds appealing. Give me a call, and let's see if we can get enough people interested.