Call for Language Volunteers

#1

Hi everyone!

I have recently become part of a team of volunteers, who are helping change the overall European perspective on refugees and asylum seekers.

More details:

" (This project is) a really big project which will contribute to changing how refugees are perceived in Europe. We are telling the stories of 1000 refugees, which means 1000 interviews. Their interviews are in average 30 - 45 minutes long each and in 20 different languages (please see all the languages below). We need help in the following way:

1. Checking Transcripts against original audio: Transcriptions are created automatically with speech recognition technology, but depending on the language and the quality of the audio, it is more or less accurate and needs to be double checked. We also need English speakers for this task.
2. Transcribing from audio: sometimes, with less commonly used languages in the west, we will need someone to do transcripts. They do not need to speak English. The languages needing manual transcriptions are: Azerbaijani, Farsi, Kurdish, Tigrigna
3. Translating to English: Once we have the checked transcripts, they need to be translated.

Interviews will be conducted in the following languages:

Arabic, Azerbaijani, Croatian, Dutch, English, Farsi, French, German, Italian, Korean, Kurdish, Spanish, Swedish, Tigrigna, Turkish"

I have worked on one interview so far, and I can’t express enough how heart-wrenching it was to learn about such families’ painful journey.

While we all simply have a roof over our heads and food (which even I take for granted), there are families and children today, who don’t even have a fraction of hope, let alone a simple meal or a comfortable bed. They are being treated like inferiors and denied their basic human rights just because they are refugees. Due to language-barriers, they also have a hard time being seen or even acknowledged.

I believe that we could serve these families from a humane perspective, by at least helping them get their voices across and by helping them be heard.

So, please, if you have few minutes a week to volunteer for this project, which also will be a nice language-related practice, kindly, reach out to:

Aude Barbera
aude@witnesschange.org

The organization’s official website is this:

You can check it out for more information on the work they do.

Thank you for your time, reading all this :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: :pray:

Zeina

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#2

What an incredible website, thank you for sharing @Zeina-AR-DE-FR-EN
I’m currently unavailable to support for translation services, but have shared it among my Persian friends to try gain some support that way.

2 Likes
#3

Thank you so much! :slightly_smiling_face:

#4

Hi Aude,

I am keen to help but I may have limited availability. However, if you are still keen, I am a native level English speaker.

I am unable to help in the other languages as I am still at the beginner stage for Korean.

Let me know. You can contact me at ivany78@gmail.com

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#5

Hi @ivany78

Thank you so much for replying back here! I encourage you to please send Aude an email at the email address I provided previously. :blush:

You can let her know that Zeina - a TWB translator - referred you for her refugee project that they advertised on the TWB platform.

(Note: TWB stands for Translators Without Borders)

Best,
Zeina

1 Like
#6

Will the translations and transcripts be credited?

#7

What do you mean - like if they will send you a certificate of completion?

#8

Yes and that if the interview will display “translated by X”.

#9

I am not sure. You can email her and ask. And then let us know if you have any answers :smiley:

#10

Thanks Zeina. I hope the workload is manageable.
Let me try.

1 Like