It's International Translation Day on Friday, 30 September. As a result of a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on May 24, 2017, every September 30 is celebrated as International Translation Day. The day is dedicated to honoring the role of language professionals in fostering peace, development, and camaraderie between linguistically distinct nations.
HIFA has had contact with Translators without Borders, an NGO set up to provide translation services for humanitarian non-profits. According to Wikipedia, it was established in 2010 as a sister organization of Traducteurs Sans Frontières, founded in 1993 by Lori Thicke and Ros Smith-Thomas of Lexcelera. They are providing valuable, though largely under-the-radar, service to dissseminating health information.
In the context of our current discusison of research communication, I should note that we not only need to translate research into a level of language appropriate for policy makers and the general public, but often also into local languages - an almost completely neglected part of research communication. This has obvious practical implications - misunderstandings of language were one reason for attacks on health workers in the Congo trying to help with the Ebola outbreak a few years ago. There are also ethical issues, particularly when research is based on human subjects, since it is an obligation of ethical research to communicate the results to the subjects. Again, this ethical obligation is often ignored.
Best,
Chris
Chris Zielinski
chris@chriszielinski.com
Blogs: http://ziggytheblue.wordpress.com and http://ziggytheblue.tumblr.com
Research publications: http://www.researchgate.net
HIFA profile: Chris Zielinski: As a Visiting Fellow and Lecturer at the Centre for Global Health, University of Winchester, Chris leads the Partnerships in Health Information (Phi) programme, which supports knowledge development and brokers healthcare information exchanges of all kinds. He is the elected Vice President (and President-in-Waiting) of the World Association of Medical Editors. Chris has held senior positions in publishing and knowledge management with WHO in Brazzaville, Geneva, Cairo and New Delhi, with FAO in Rome, ILO in Geneva, and UNIDO in Vienna. He served on WHO's Ethical Review Committee, and was an originator of the African Health Observatory. He also spent three years in London as Chief Executive of the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society. Chris has been a director of the UK Copyright Licensing Agency, Educational Recording Agency, and International Association of Audiovisual Writers and Directors. He has served on the boards of several NGOs and ethics groupings (information and computer ethics and bioethics). chris AT chriszielinski.com. His publications are at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Zielinski and https://winchester.academia.edu/ChrisZielinski/ and his blogs are http://ziggytheblue.wordrpress.com and https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ziggytheblue
