Knowledge is power. It saves lives, lifts people out of poverty, ensures better health and nutrition, creates and maintains economies. Access to information is critical. Language barriers cost lives. Aid groups working in crisis-situations face a mission-critical challenge in disseminating knowledge in the language of those that who need it. Translators Without Borders is a humanitarian non-profit. Our mission is to promote the transfer of knowledge from one language to another by creating and managing a community of NGOs who need translations and professional, vetted translators who volunteer their time to help.

1. Translators without Borders
Using Language to Change the World
Val Swisher, Executive Board Member
@TranslatorsWB

2. Knowledge of English
Europeans and Their Languages, June 2012
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf

3. Europeans and Their Languages, June 2012
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf

4. Regina in
Thange, Kenya

7. In Sub-Saharan Africa,
1 IN 8 CHILDREN DIE
before the age of 5
The biggest cause of
infant mortality:
diarrhea
Information is the cure

9. http://www.lifewater.org/resourcesinformation/programs/hand-pump-repair/

10. The Math – Why Billions Lack Information

11. Spoken Languages
English
20%
Everyone else
52%
Mandarin
20%
French
1%
Spanish
7%

12. Access to knowledge in a native language is
critical to empowerment.
“As many as 40 percent of child deaths could be
prevented with improved family and community
care—not through high-tech health equipment,
but though access to solid knowledge, support
and basic supplies.”
(Unicef, http://www.unicef.org/mdg/childmortality.html)

14. Translators without Borders is the world’s largest community
of humanitarian translators
What We Do:
• Connect nonprofit organizations with our
community of translators
• Build local language translation capacity
• Raise awareness of language barriers

15. Some of the non-profits
we supported in 2012
$209,369
$35,324
$155,283
$20,267
$100,273
$14,791
$36,336
$7,447

16. Training Maasai
schoolteachers to
subtitle
The TWB Translators
Training Center in
Nairobi
MemoQ training in
January by Marek
Pawelec

17. Translating citizen reports during
the Kenyan elections
from Kalenjin, Luo, Kikuyu, Kamba, Meru,
Kisii, Maa, Pokot, Nandi, Kipsigis, Luhya

19. A mobile app for training frontline
healthcare workers

20. 100 Wikipedia Articles into 100
Languages

22. The Impact
Critical information in Arabic
from the UN High Commissioner
for Refugees now getting to 1.1
million Syrian refugees.
Neonatal health videos subtitled in
Indic languages available for free the on
mobile phones of mothers in India
Complaints and concerns of thousands
of non-English speaking Kenyans were
recorded and made openly available
during Kenyan elections.
Training in neonatal care now
available to doctors in Haiti.
Basic healthcare information now
provided in Swahili to community health
workers in Kenya.

23. The Impact
Says Andrew Alspach, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees manager for Syrian
refugees:
“Your professionalism and prompt turn-around for this piece of work is impressive and
the impact it will have on our Arabic speaking audience, which includes those Syrians
directly affected by this crisis, will be profound.”
Says Heather Leson, Ushahidi manager in charge of Kenyan election project:
“Without the role played by TWB we could not be celebrating this massive success.”
Says Olivier Bluteau, African field manager for Doctors without Borders:
“It is both amazing and also very comforting and inspiring to see people donate their time
and skills to defend the principles of action and the ideas of humanitarian assistance.”

24. So Much More to Do

26. How Can You Help?

28. Be Part of It!
Sponsor!
Join our sponsors who have committed to making sure knowledge
is available in the right language.
Fund-a-Translator
We train translators in Kenya and want to train more throughout
Africa – we need your help.
Support our TWB Bikers!
Make it a company affair! Match donations from employees.
Volunteer
We are always in need of more volunteers for translation, but also
for test reviews, screenings, project management, web
engineering and much more!

30. Increasing access to
knowledge and
empowering people
Thanks for your support
val@translatorswithoutborders.org

33. Support – THANK YOU

34. Thanks to our Platinum Sponsors…
…and our Gold Sponsors!

35. Thanks to our Silver Sponsors…
1-STOP TRANSLATION
ALPHA
AVB Translations
BEATBABEL
CETRA
CIKLOPEA
COMMGAP
COMTEC
CONVERSIS GLOBAL
CROSSLANG
DELINGUA
EQHO COMMUNICATIONS
EUROCOM
EXPRIMO
FOREIGN LANGUAGE SERVICES
GLOBO LANGUAGE SOLUTIONS
INTELLIGENT CONTENT CONFERENCE
LOCALIZATION GUY
…and our Bronze Sponsors!
NORDIC TRANSLATION INDUSTRY FORUM
PURETRANS
SEMANTIX
SEPROTEC
SKJAL
SKOPOS
SPACE 360
STP NORDIC TRANSLATION
TECHNIWRITE
TEKNOTRANS
TEXO
TRANSPERFECT
TRANSLATOR SCANDINAVIA
UPS TRANSLATIONS
WELOCALIZE
XLATED