This came as a nice surprise :)
HEAT Project: Translators Training in West Africa
How it all begun: We are contacting you because we are cooperating with the Open University on a very important project called HEAT. The goal of HEAT is to reach and help training thousands of frontline healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa. HEAT was created to address the fact that over 1 billion people never get to see a trained healthcare worker in their life. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, people suffer 25% of the world’s disease burden, but have access to only 3% of the world’s health workers.
Every person, in every village everywhere, should have access to skilled, motivated and supported health worker.'
Former WHO Director-General J W Lee.
After that, I was liaising directly with Areeg Hegazi, the West Africa Program Director, an Egyptian woman.
How it all begun: We are contacting you because we are cooperating with the Open University on a very important project called HEAT. The goal of HEAT is to reach and help training thousands of frontline healthcare workers in sub-Saharan Africa. HEAT was created to address the fact that over 1 billion people never get to see a trained healthcare worker in their life. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, people suffer 25% of the world’s disease burden, but have access to only 3% of the world’s health workers.
Translating from English into French HEAT health training materials we will ensure that the information is available for community health workers operating amongst grass root communities. Once translated to French, the potential for these materials to be translated to other local languages is maximized not just in Guinea but in all of French speaking Africa
Translators without Borders is also aiming to train 12 translators from Guinea over 5 months, to become professional translators, translate material from English into French into an appropriate format so that this critical information could then be delivered into local languages orally, start their businesses and improve the field of professional translation in Guinea. They will be working on the translation of the remaining documents of the HEAT materials
Every person, in every village everywhere, should have access to skilled, motivated and supported health worker.'
Former WHO Director-General J W Lee.
After that, I was liaising directly with Areeg Hegazi, the West Africa Program Director, an Egyptian woman.
She explained: 'through the translation of health training materials from English to French we will ensure that they are accessible for community health workers working among grass root communities in Guinea. Once translated to French, the training packages can then be translated to other local languages in Guinea. Information in the wrong language can lead to serious misconceptions on how to contract a disease and how to treat a disease. In a survey published in late August, UNICEF found that in Sierra Leone, 30% believed Ebola was transmitted via mosquitos and another 30% believed it was an airborne disease. Moreover, four out of ten respondents (42%) believed hot salt-water baths are effective cure. For the translation to proceed, the materials need to reviewed and edited to simplify the language to ensure that the content is simplified.
She said: We cannot afford not to translate
Later on, on International Translators Day (30th of September 2016), she send us an email saying: 'I wanted to share with you the news that today is the end of the two weeks medical translation training for the team of translators in Guinea. We are all very excited. This is the very very first time that a training like this took place in Guinea. This group after the coming 4 months will be the most qualified Medical translators team in Guinea.
On Monday they will be ready to start the translations thanks to your work on the translations you have helped us build a translation memory for them to facilitate their work and the help in the review of their exams.
Given that the general education level in the country is not so good (literacy is only 30%), we were lucky to pick a group of well educated translators who will be able to read and write in English and French. But none the less , the English level proficiency among the team isn't so high and that's were your job is critical and timely.
On behalf of the team in Guinea, I would like to thank each and everyone of you for your time and effort you are helping us with to make the job easy for this nice team.
She then shared a few pictures of the newly trained translators
The project leader with the only female translator in the team.
Literacy among females is only 18% so working women are pretty rare. 'She's one of the best participants' Areeg said. I was lucky to have her as one of the two translators I would coach for the second phase of the project, editing and making suggestions to her translations on weekly batches for 4 months.
It was an honor working on this project, I knew the value of building a specialised Translation Memory for the new translators to build on, and we were lucky to use MateCat, a great Translation software, with MT built in, etc... we were 'technically well treated as well'.
Literacy among females is only 18% so working women are pretty rare. 'She's one of the best participants' Areeg said. I was lucky to have her as one of the two translators I would coach for the second phase of the project, editing and making suggestions to her translations on weekly batches for 4 months.
It was an honor working on this project, I knew the value of building a specialised Translation Memory for the new translators to build on, and we were lucky to use MateCat, a great Translation software, with MT built in, etc... we were 'technically well treated as well'.
This is one of my best profesional moment!
Communication in the right language saves life:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ0ebTKUCy4
I especially like the last images with all the network links firing all around the globe like neurone connections
More about the project and on Guinea's Newest Translators: http://translatorswithoutborders.org/guinea
Ted Talk from TWB CEO on the why of the project or how to make a difference in the world through language translation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcYVVNe_O4
Communication in the right language saves life:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ0ebTKUCy4
I especially like the last images with all the network links firing all around the globe like neurone connections
More about the project and on Guinea's Newest Translators: http://translatorswithoutborders.org/guinea
Ted Talk from TWB CEO on the why of the project or how to make a difference in the world through language translation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYcYVVNe_O4
