How Translators Volunteer for a Better World
Voluntary translators translate millions of words every day, worth hundreds of thousands of euros, to make our world a better place. They translate for many different types of organisations, some of them are for-profit, others are nonprofit; some of them are translation brokers, others are working in specific areas such as micro finance or the environment.
Together, they use their professional experience and skills to provide access to knowledge and information to people independent of their social, economic, linguistic or geographic background.
This link collection is an attempt to provide an overview of these initiatives.
Should you be aware of initiatives not listed here, please email us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
| # | Web Link |
|---|---|
| 1 |
American Association for Microbiology The ASM is the world's largest scientific society of individuals interested in the microbiological sciences. The International Education Committee (IEC) has launched the Volunteer Translators Network Program to make ASM web-based materials more accessible to international members. Through this program, ASM members can assist in translating important resources, such as the MicrobeLibrary, into other languages. Currently, the IEC is working with Spanish, French, and Portuguese-speaking members and actively seeking additional volunteers. |
| 2 |
Ashoka Ashoka strives to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the world’s citizens to think and act as changemakers. Ashoka and Ashoka Fellows are always in need of bilingual volunteers to translate documents such as articles, newsletters, surveys, brochures, reports, and proposals. |
| 3 |
ATA and American Red Cross Recruit Volunteer Interpreters The American Translators Association and the American Red Cross (ARC) have an ongoing partnership to develop a nationwide volunteer network of professional interpreters. ATA's Interpreters Division took the lead in recruiting volunteers and coordinating the initial pilot program. |
| 4 |
Chinadialogue 中国与世界，环境危机大家谈 - WHERE CHINA AND THE WORLD DISCUSS THE ENVIRONMENT 申请成为双语志愿者 - Become a bilingual volunteer volunteer@chinadialogue.net |
| 5 |
Cucumis Cucumis is a community of translators who share their linguistic knowledge and help each other online. Cucumis is a web-site where you can submit texts to be translated by the community. |
| 6 |
DCBAR "The District of Columbia Bar is the second largest unified bar association in the United States. Many of the important educational and public service programs carried out by the Bar are made possible by voluntary contributions, user fees, and other nondues sources of income. Volunteers typically assist with interpretation and/or translation in the following types of cases: Housing, Family Law, Consumer, Social Security/Disability, Immigration. |
| 7 |
Earthrights International We document human rights and environmental abuses in countries where few other organizations can safely operate. We organize the human rights and environmental activist communities around earth rights issues. We teach people about their earth rights and remedies, especially people living under repressive regimes. If you are fluent in English and Spanish and would like to use your translation skills to protect the environment and human rights, volunteer at EarthRights International. Volunteer(s) are needed regularly to help translate campaign materials from English to Spanish, and vice versa. |
| 8 |
Eurordis The primary language of the Eurordis site is English. It is thanks to dedicated individuals who volunteer their time and translating talents that a selection of information on this website is available in five additional languages - French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. |
| 9 |
Global Voices Project Lingua amplifies Global Voices stories in languages other than English with the help of volunteer translators. It opens the line of communication with non-English speaking bloggers and readers of Global Voices by translating content into other languages. |
| 10 |
Google Health Speaks Better health starts with better information! Accurate, accessible health information has the power to save lives. However, millions of people around the world face a simple yet vexing barrier to getting quality health information: language. Health Speaks is an initiative to help communities overcome this obstacle by translating high-quality health information into their local languages. Combining the power of local expertise with efficient online tools like the Google Translator Toolkit, Health Speaks aims to efficiently increase the amount of quality health information available online in local languages. |
| 11 |
idealist.org Idealist is a project of Action Without Borders, a nonprofit organization founded in 1995 with offices in the United States and Argentina. Idealist is an interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas, locate opportunities and supporters, and take steps toward building a world where all people can lead free and dignified lives. Volunteer Translation Opportunities can be found in our database. |
| 12 |
International Alliance of Inhabitants is a global network of associations and social movements of inhabitants, cooperatives, communities, tenants, house owners, homeless, slum dwellers, indigenous populations and people from working class neighbourhoods. Help us improving communication in several languages: Become a Volunteer Translator for Housing Right with No Borders! |
| 13 |
International Campaign to Ban Landmines The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) is a global network in over 90 countries that works for a world free of antipersonnel landmines and cluster munitions, where landmine and cluster munition survivors can lead fulfilling lives. |
| 14 |
International Children's Digital Library The ICDL depends upon a network of individuals who volunteer their time to translate books in the ICDL collection, the ICDL Web interface, bibliographic information about our books, author biographies, and other documents into various languages. |
| 15 |
Iwith.org Iwith.org's mission is to promote information and communication technologies as tools for solidarity and progress in society. Become a volunteer: Currently over 30 persons are active in various activities such as translating documents, writing articles, coordinating projects, and so on; your participation would be most welcome! |
| 16 |
Kiva Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva Volunteer Translators currently translate sets of loan profiles that Kiva Field Partners have posted on the Kiva website. Each profile provides a brief overview of the entrepreneur's background and their microbusiness. |
| 17 |
Languages on the Web The Daisy Stories and Arranger Stories by Crystal Jones are perfect for learning a foreign language. Most translations available on this site have been contributed by professional translators as a free gift to our site. Thanks to their hard work and their expertise this site keeps being visited by people from every part of the world who can use the Daisy and Arranger Stories to learn any of the available languages! If you want to contribute one or more Daisy Stories translation in your language you are very welcome to do so! We will be grateful to you and put the appropriate credit along each translated Daisy Story. |
| 18 |
Marxists Internet Archive The Marxists Internet Archive is always in need of translators, especially translation into English of writers whose works are not known outside their own language community, or translation of works into languages which are represented on the MIA, but are spoken in just one country. We also need Italian-English translators to work on our Gramsci Archive or Polish-English translators to work on Rosa Luxemburg. Contact our Admin Committee to offer your assistance, if you are an experienced translator, fluent in both languages and willing to offer your services for free, and with access to documents in an appropriate language. |
| 19 |
Northern California Translators Association A list collected by The Northern California Translators Association of general, local, national and international volunteer opportunities. |
| 20 |
streetfootballworld streetfootballworld believes in the power of football to contribute to social change on a global scale. We are looking for native speakers of English, Spanish, French or German to join our international volunteer translator team. If you would like to dedicate 1-3 hours per week to a great cause, and are interested in translating texts for streetfootballworld, the editorial department would be more than happy to hear from you! |
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