Language barriers to climate change (2) HIFA Multilingualism

26 January, 2022

Thank you Najeeb for pointing us to this TED talk. https://www.ted.com/talks/sophia_kianni_language_shouldn_t_be_a_barrier_...

Here are extracts:

"The fact that the vast majority of scientific research is only available in English is a big problem when it comes to climate change because most people in the world don't speak English...

"Languages remain a significant barrier to the global transfer of scientific knowledge -- be it through the press, through schools or through political processes. In an effort to close the climate translation gap, I decided to start Climate Cardinals, and international youth-led nonprofit working to make climate education more accessible to those who don't speak English...

"So we must engage people from every country, young and old, to join the fight for climate justice. English cannot be the barrier to entry."

The same can be said about the availability of reliable healthcare information. Thanks to you, Isabelle Wachsmuth (WHO) and others on the HIFA Working Group on Multilingualism, we want to ensure that every person has access to reliable healthcare information in a language they can understand. A key partner is Translators Without Borders, who have been doing incredible work in this area.

Multilingualism is a key part of HIFA's Strategy and our ongoing collaboration with WHO and others to support HIFA-French, HIFA-Portuguese and HIFA-Spanish.

I invite HIFA members with an interest in this issue to review our project page: http://www.hifa.org/projects/multilingualism We welcome new members and new ideas.

Best wishes, Neil

Neil Pakenham-Walsh, HIFA Coordinator, neil@hifa.org www.hifa.org