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Translators and interpreters help save lives. La traduction et l’interprétation au service de l’humanité. October 5, 2011

Posted by Dominique Millette in Canada, cultural industries, Disaster aid, Disaster zones, Language industries, NGOs.
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Whether in disaster zones or aiding NGOs carry out their crucial tasks, linguists play a crucial role in ensuring communication flows freely for those in distress.

To highlight this lesser-known aspect of the business, Glendon College in Toronto invited two guest speakers in honour of International Translation Day on September 28: Henry Dotterer, founder of the online translation agency Pro-Z and board member of Translators Without Borders; and Lola Bendana, president of the International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA).

Two Canadians have founded or helped direct organizations to do just that. Lori Thicke, a Torontonian working in Paris, founded Translators Without Borders in 1993 after Doctors Without Borders (MSF) approached her for a quote. She decided to provide the humanitarian work for free. As Henry Dotterer tells it, MSF answered they had a budget to pay the work. Thicke replied that the money could be used to provide more vaccine, which was the subject of the work to be translated.

Since that time, TWB has attracted 678 volunteers to its database. Translators are screened through a rigorous testing process before they gain admission. After that, it’s up to the humanitarian organizations and volunteers to find each other and agree on projects. Amongst the NGOs served are Oxfam, MSF, Zafèn, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Enfants du monde and GoodPlanet. After the earthquake in Haïti, volunteers helped translate documents on how to manage clinics where amputations are performed; and how to treat shock and trauma. TWB supports about 40 active clients. Its next mission: to expand into Africa and help build the translation industry there, for local languages as well as better-known ones.

Meanwhile, Lola Bendana, the Toronto-based president of the IMIA, helps coordinate efforts to reach out to disaster victims worldwide. The IMIA is an advocacy organization founded in 1986, representing 70 languages, 2,000 members and 11 countries and dedicated to professionalizing medical interpretation. A Glendon College English-Spanish translation programme graduate, Bendana usually opposes the idea of translators and interpreters working for nothing. However, humanitarian work is a crucial exception. Through its Disaster Relief Interpreter Database, the IMIA puts volunteer medical interpreters in touch with NGOs and other organization working in natural catastrophy zones.

The initiative was born from the Haïti earthquake in January 2010. For seven weeks, the Comfort Hospital Ship ministered to patients; however, the first volunteers were non-professionals who did not have any in-depth knowledge of medical terminology, which proved problematic. As a result, the Red Cross approached the IMIA for help. The earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March 2011 provided another unfortunate opportunity to lend assistance, as Japanase IMIA representative Kazumi Takesako organized a group of volunteer interpreters and reached out to translators as well. The latter were needed to help with documents concerning nuclear problems at the Fukushima plant. Takesako had vowed to prevent tragedies such as the case of a mother in a previous earthquake who lost her baby

Interpretation can be wrenching for other reasons. Bendana is of Nicaraguan origin and was studying in Costa Rica when she was sent to the border to assist Nicaraguan refugees. Her professors had advised all student interpreters to explain to the refugees they should lay out the political reasons for their asylum claims. However, the refugees would say they had trouble feeding their children. They feared being killed if they told the truth: not being allowed to work and having parcels of land confiscated, Bendana said.


Que ce soit dans les zones de catastrophe ou en aidant les ONG à effectuer leurs tâches essentielles, les linguistes jouent un rôle indispensable au niveau de la libre communication entre les personnes en détresse et les organismes de sauvetage.

Afin de mieux faire connaître cet aspect de l’industrie, le Collège Glendon à Toronto a invité un conférencier et une conférencière à l’occasion de la Journée internationale de la traduction le 28 septembre : Henry Dotterer, fondateur de l’agence de traduction en ligne Pro-Z et membre du conseil de Traducteurs sans frontières; et Lola Bendana, présidente de l’association internationale des interprètes médicaux et médicales, la International Medical Interpreters Association (IMIA).

Deux Canadiennes ont soit fondé, soit aidé à diriger des organismes à faire exactement cela. Lori Thicke est Torontoise basée à Paris et a lancé Traducteurs sans frontières en 1993 après que Médecins sans frontières (MSF) l’ait approchée pour qu’elle leur fasse un prix. Elle a décidé plutôt de fournir le travail humanitaire gratuitement. Comme le raconte Henry Dotterer, MSF a répondu qu’on avait le budget pour le travail. Thicke a répondu que l’argent pourrait servir à fournir davantage de vaccins, le sujet même du travail à traduire.

Depuis, TSF a attiré 678 bénévoles à sa base de données. On évalue des traducteurs à l’aide d’un rigoureux processus d’examen, après quoi il en revient aux organismes humanitaires et aux bénévoles de se retrouver et de s’accorder sur les projets. Les ONG qui profitent du service comprennent Oxfam, MSF, Zafèn, la fondation Fais-Un-Vœu, Enfants du monde et GoodPlanet.  Suite au tremblement de terre d’Haïti, des bénévoles ont aidé à traduire des documents sur la gestion des cliniques où on effectuait des amputations; et sur le traitement du traumatisme et du trauma. TSF appuie environ 40 clients actifs. Son prochain défi est d’offrir davantage de services en Afrique et d’aider à y bâtir l’industrie de la traduction, tant pour les langues locales que pour celles qui sont mieux connues.

De son côté, Lola Bendana, la présidente torontoise de l’IMIA, aide à coordonner les efforts effectués pour rejoindre les victimes de catastrophes partout dans le monde. L’IMIA est un organisme de revendication, fondé en 1986, voué à la professionnalisation de l’interprétation médicale. Il regroupe 2 000 membres de 11 pays parlant 70 langues. Diplômée du programme de traduction de l’anglais vers l’espagnol du Collège Glendon, Bendana s’oppose habituellement à l’idée du travail gratuit pour les traducteurs et interprètes. Cependant, le travail humanitaire est une exception fondamentale. Par le biais de sa base de données d’interprètes pour le secours des personnes sinistrées, l’IMIA permet aux interprètes médicaux et médicales bénévoles de communiquer avec les ONG et autres organismes oeuvrant en zone sinistrée.

L’initiative est née du séisme haïtien de janvier 2010. Pendant sept semaines, le navire hospitalier Comfort a soigné les sinistrés; cependant, les premiers bénévoles n’avaient pas de formation professionnelle et ne connaissaient pas la terminologie médicale, ce qui a occasionné des ennuis. Donc, la Croix-Rouge a approché l’IMIA pour demander de l’aide. Le séisme et tsunami au Japon en mars 2011 a fourni une autre malheureuse occasion de prêter secours : la représentante japonaise de l’IMIA, Kazumi Takesako, a organisé un groupe d’interprètes bénévoles et a également demandé l’aide des traducteurs. Ces derniers étaient nécessaires à la traduction de documents concernant les problèmes nucléaires à l’installation de Fukushima. Takesako avait juré d’empêcher les tragédies futures semblables à celles d’une mère qui avait perdu son enfant au cours d’un séisme antérieur, parce que les secouristes ne voyaient pas le bébé et ne comprenaient pas ce qu’elle disait pour les avertir.

Le métier d’interprète peut s’avérer déchirant pour d’autres raisons. Bendana est nicaraguayenne d’origine et faisait ses études au Costa Rica lorsqu’elle a été envoyée à la frontière pour venir en aide aux réfugiés du Nicaragua. Ses professeurs avaient avisé tous les interprètes aux études d’expliquer aux réfugiés qu’ils devaient donner des raisons politiques pour leur demandes d’asile. Cependant, les réfugiés disaient qu’ils éprouvaient des difficultés à nourrir leurs enfants. Ils craignaient se faire tuer s’ils disaient la vérité : soit qu’on ne leur permettait pas de travailler et qu’on leur confisquait leurs lopins de terre, a dit Bendana.


Guns: world issue hits close to home April 26, 2010

Posted by Dominique Millette in Canada, United Nations.
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Our place in the post-recessionary world March 25, 2010

Posted by Dominique Millette in Canada, recession, world economy, world finance.
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Because Canada has emerged relatively more unscathed from the Great Recession than its counterparts in the U.S., Europe and Japan, there’s a tendency for some to feel smug. Yet, the recent storm was only a prelude to the gathering demographic tsunami awaiting fiscal policy makers everywhere. That includes Canada.

This was one of the issues to emerge during “After the Meltdown”, the inaugural conference at Glendon College’s Centre for Global Challenges, on March 24 2010.  The panelists: American Nobel Laureate economist George Akerlof,  award-winning Québec economic columnist Pierre Fortin and London School of Economics professor Tim Besley.

Last year, Akerlof published a book called Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism. The gist of his argument, and of cowriter Robert Shiller’s, is that market forces are not governed by entirely rational decision-making as conventional economic theory posits. Originally, Keynes was the first to use the term “animal spirits” in economic theory. It describes consumer and business confidence, but also the key factor of trust. This, as Akerlof argued during the conference, goes necessarily beyond the rational. The resulting conclusion of the book is that only the steady hand of government can effectively counter the erratic pull of emotional overconfidence and subsequent panic.

Fortin, for his part, writes for the Québec magazine Actualité, but is also professor of economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He’s won the Gold Medal of the Governor General of Canada and has won national prizes and medals for his articles and his column. His contribution to the debate centred around the need for zero-deficit fiscal responsibility to prepare for both further economic disruption and needed social spending. A big part of that is our upcoming demographic winter, specifically the problem of ballooning health care. In Ontario alone, as premier Dalton McGuinty pointed out earlier this month, health-care funding will consume 70 per cent of the budget in 12 years if left unchecked. Today, health takes up 46 per cent of provincial spending. Meanwhile, the 15-64 year-old population will stop growing in 2025, just 15 years from now; and the 65+ segment will explode. Fortin stated that no amount of increase in the birth rate, or immigration, will change the fundamental imbalance.

One of the problems, of course, is that changing health care costs is a titanic struggle. Québec doctors regularly leave the province for Ontario, which pays twice as much, or for the U.S., which can pay even more. MDs in the U.S. make about $200,000, which is between 2 and 5 times as much as doctors make in other countries. The effect is to pressure Canadian provincial governments into negotiating higher fees with its medical professionals. This is one factor which keeps costs high compared to other developed countries; another, argued Fortin, is health care bureaucracy.

If cost-cutting becomes too great a challenge, revenue generation must take its place. This leads to the issue of comparative productivity: Canada and Italy are the snails of productivity in the G7 countries, asserted Fortin. This lag translates into lower fiscal revenues.

Tim Besley then weighed in with his analysis, which he has also brought to bear as External Member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee and as consultant to the English Treasury.  He observed that normally, capital would flow from rich countries to poor ones, while before the recent crisis the opposite occurred. This ought to have given us pause. Besley gave an overview of the policy and theoretical failures underlying the crisis: the emphasis on inflation targeting as sufficient for global stability; the rejection of activist fiscal policy — a view he espoused personally, he acknowledged; the dismissal of economic inequalities as inconsequential; and the spread of globalization limiting the power to tax. A major pitfall, of course, was lack of strong regulation, as demonstrated by the shell games major financial institutions played — Lehman Brothers and Citigroup being only two examples.

Other factors created pent-up pressure for the direction ultimately taken by capital flows. For example, current account balances diverged dramatically in recent decades with Germany, China and Japan producing surpluses while the U.S. and U.K. created deficits. This sent borrowed money flowing out of some economies and into others. There was also strong growth in financial liabilities: in Spain and in the U.K., these grew to 200 per cent of GDP by the year 2000. As a result, there was an increase in securitization and related derivatives, instruments at the heart of the recent crisis. Meanwhile, financial sector wages skyrocketed from 1.5 to 4 times the rate of other non-farm sector workers from 1990 to the mid-oughts, which increased the number of people eager and willing to wade into the trough. At the same time, there was an unusual compression of risk premia: by 2004-05, buyers accepted a much lower compensation for risk, which indicated very high confidence. Too high, as it turned out.

All in all, what emerged from this discussion, and subsequent questions, was that global governance and local oversight are major issues for the G20 today — and Canada has an important role to play, though we cannot afford to be complacent within our own borders by any means.