Meet Andreia: a translator shaping a more equal future

On 8 March, we join the world in celebrating International Women’s Day 2021. We’re interviewing Andreia Frazão, a translator whose tremendous efforts contribute to improving the lives of women, men, and children across the world. This year, the theme is “Women in leadership: Achieving an equal future in a COVID-19 world.” We’re celebrating the efforts of women and girls around the world in shaping a more equal future and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic through language.

Women are at the forefront of the COVID-19 response, as health workers, scientists, doctors, and caregivers. They’re also translators, linguists, and humanitarians ensuring communications about the virus are clear, accurate, and effective; something that is too often overlooked.  Studies by TWB in Nigeria and Bangladesh found that women are disproportionately affected by a lack of access to information they can understand, as a result of unequal opportunities, less education, and lower literacy levels.

Linguists shape more equal futures by providing vital information, in a language and format people understand. This can equip women with the information they need to make important decisions about their lives. By putting women’s needs at the center of communications efforts, humanitarians can be more effective, helping women achieve equal rights and opportunities. Translators without Borders (TWB) translators like Andreia are making that happen.

translator equal
Andreia Frazão

About Andreia:

  • Based in Coimbra, Portugal
  • Passionate about women’s rights
  • Joined TWB in March 2020 to help respond to COVID-19
  • Donated 385,000 words in English to Portuguese
  • Supported 40 nonprofit organizations with her work

What is your biggest motivation for volunteering with TWB?

Andreia:

When the pandemic broke out here in Portugal, I wanted to help. Of course, when you are faced with a public health crisis, your instinct tells you only a doctor or a scientist can have an important social role. But the more I knew about COVID-19, the more I realized it was not just a worldwide health crisis – it was a worldwide information crisis. And TWB presented me with an opportunity to take action.

Another key motivation is the amazing TWB community. The community forum is where the TWB volunteers and the TWB team come together to make announcements and ask questions about projects, procedures, and the Kató translation platform, but it is so much more than that. It is a place full of enthusiasm and mutual help. It was where my attachment to TWB sprang from.

I was fascinated by everyone’s commitment to TWB’s work – regardless of age, gender, country, religion, and work situation. Even members of the TWB staff volunteer with TWB. And I noticed volunteers continued to work on their tasks, even through difficult circumstances. It feels wonderful to be part of this worldwide community, which takes on the mission of breaking down the world’s language barriers, especially during these difficult times.

Tell us about a project you have worked on this year.

Andreia:

Education has been disrupted by the pandemic, for people all over the world. I translated INEE’s COVID-19 Advocacy Brief – Learning Must Go On to support safe, inclusive learning for the most marginalized people, including those already living in crisis and conflict contexts. Young girls in particular are further affected by forced marriages, and risk of early pregnancy, and domestic and sexual violence. I wanted to be involved in addressing these issues. So I completed a project with Missing Children Europe in which I transcribed focus group discussions aiming to understand why young girls had run away from home. I remember one of the girls in particular. She had run away from a terrible home environment and as a consequence missed out on her education. These children can be helped, first by being listened to, and it’s important that communication happens in the language they are most comfortable with.

When it comes to translating information around the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to be accurate, and make sure life-saving messages are effectively conveyed. Translating and interpreting is not just about converting words from one language into another. It is about communication. In sensitive situations such as during a crisis where anxiety, uncertainty and fear are prevalent, translators also bring interpersonal skills to the table. Being more sensitive to emotional cues, knowing if someone is uncomfortable or having a hard time understanding something, and imbuing trust are key.

What’s life like as a TWB translator?

Andreia:

It gave me a sense of purpose right from the start, which has helped me stay positive throughout the COVID-19 crisis. During a lockdown, it is easy to be affected by anxiety or insomnia. Being a TWB volunteer gave me structure, and project deadlines helped me create a meaningful routine.

It also made me more confident, thanks to the positive input I received from other volunteers. I remember once, a fellow TWB translator left me a feedback note saying my work was one of the best translations they had seen in the translation platform. It made my day. I also feel that the project managers trust my work, as they often contact me to work on full, sometimes urgent projects. That is very encouraging. Thanks to TWB I found motivation to hone dormant language skills and put them to good use.

Finally, in TWB, I met several people with whom I share a common set of values and a common outlook on life, and who have become my friends.

Which women do you look up to and why?

Andreia:

Brave Malala Yousafzai is the perfect symbol for all the women I look up to. I deeply admire her for her unwavering fight for girls’ right to education, but that is far from the only reason. I also admire her for her genuine honesty and kindness, her irresistible charisma, and her jovial outlook on life. She turned hate into love and ignorance into hope.

Some of Andreia’s favorite women-focused groups include:

Andreia Frazão

How can humanitarian translation help women be more included?

Andreia:

Humanitarians play a key role in raising awareness and fighting gender-based violence and stigma. Humanitarian work is also vital to prevent sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment (PSEAH). Translators amplify these efforts by translating guidance, research, advocacy messages and informative materials intended for the public. They also make sure vital information is in the right language for affected people.

A great introduction to the topic is the TED Talk by TWB’s wonderful CEO, Aimee Ansari, “How to change the world through language whilst sitting on your sofa.” She opens with a heartbreaking story. In a desperate attempt to save her starving child, a mother carried her for hours, the only nutritional information available to her written in a language she could neither speak nor read.

Girls and women are often among the most vulnerable in any group, and this story is a key example of that. It also shows why TWB’s work is so important – by providing organizations and people with the information they so need and want in their own language, we can help save lives.

Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Use the hashtags #ChooseToChallenge #IWD2021 and #LanguageMattersNow

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Written by Danielle Moore, Communications and Engagement Officer for Translators without Borders. Interview responses by Andreia Frazão, Translator for TWB. 

Marginalized mother languages – two ways to improve the lives of the people who speak them

21 February. This is the date chosen by UNESCO for International Mother Language Day, which has been observed worldwide since 2000. This year deserves special attention as 2019 is the International Year of Indigenous Languages. Both initiatives promote linguistic diversity and equal access to multilingual information and knowledge.

Languages can be a huge resource. At the same time, the mother language that people speak can be a barrier to accessing opportunities. People who speak marginalized mother languages often belong to remote or less prosperous communities and, as a result, they are more vulnerable when a crisis hits.

Yet, the humanitarian and development sector has been largely blind to the importance of language. International languages such as English, French, Arabic, and Spanish dominate, excluding the people who most need their voices heard. Marginalized language speakers are denied opportunities to communicate their needs and priorities, report abuse, or get the information they need to make decisions.

If aid organizations are to meet their high-level commitments to put people at the center of humanitarian action and leave no one behind, this needs to change. To understand better how to address language barriers facing marginalized communities, two actions can lead our sector in the right direction.

Aerial view of Monguno, Borno State, Nigeria. Photo by Eric DeLuca, Translators without Borders.

Putting languages on the map

The first is language mapping. No comprehensive and readily accessible dataset exists on which language people speak where.

TWB has started to fill that gap by creating maps from existing data and from our own research. Our interactive map shows the language and communication needs of internally displaced people in northeast Nigeria. The map uses data collected by the International Organization for Migration’s Displacement Tracking Matrix team. This data shows, for instance, that access to information is a serious problem at over half of sites where Marghi is the dominant language. Aid organizations can use this map to develop the right communication strategy for reaching people in need.

Humanitarian and development organizations can add some simple standard questions to their household surveys and other assessments to gather valuable language data. Aid workers will then understand the communication needs and preferences of the 176 million people in need of humanitarian assistance globally.

But communication in a crisis situation – or in any situation – should not be one-way. That’s where the second action comes in.

Building machine translation capacity in marginalized languages

Language technology has dramatically shifted two-way communication between people who speak different languages. In order to truly help people in need, listen to and understand them, we need to apply technology to their languages as well.

TWB is leading the Gamayun Language Equality Initiative to make it happen. We have built a closed-environment, domain-specific Levantine Arabic machine engine for the UN World Food Programme. This initiative will improve accountability to Syrian refugees facing food insecurity. Initial testing indicates that Gamayun will provide an efficient method for accessing local information sources. It will enable aid organizations to better understand the needs of their target populations, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

TWB Fulfulde Team Lead conducting comprehension research. Waterboard camp in Monguno, Borno State, Nigeria. Photo by Eric DeLuca, Translators without Borders.

We need to continue building the parallel language datasets from humanitarian and development content that make machine translation a viable option. That will expand the evidence that machine translation can enable better communication, including by empowering affected people to hold aid organizations to account in their own language.

Taking action

These two actions can help the humanitarian and development sector improve lives by promoting two-way communication with speakers of marginalized languages.  These actions will need to be expanded to be truly effective, but International Mother Language Day in the Year of Indigenous Languages is a great time to start.

To read:

    • The IFRC 2018 World Disasters Report, which includes clear and compelling recommendations about the importance of language to ensure that the world’s most vulnerable people are not “left behind”
  • TWB’s white paper on the Gamayun Language Equality Initiative

To do:

    • Consult our dashboard and think about how you can start collecting this data to inform your programs
    • Follow our journey as we continue to move forward with Gamayun (and learn along the way!)
  • Email us if you have an idea to share or want to do more in this area: [email protected]
Written by Mia Marzotto, Senior Advocacy Officer for Translators without Borders.