The Power of Technology, Teamwork and Tenacity
Case Study: Striking Success
The Power of Technology, Teamwork and Tenacity
Author: Ulrike Fuehrer | Director at Context
Strikes occur in Belgium nearly as often as in Paris, Berlin or Madrid and frequently affect the transport system. They are as powerful as they are disruptive.
On 20 June 2022, access to all Belgian airports and train stations was severely disrupted, also impacting on participation of two parallel meetings we supported in Brussels. As a project manager on site in Brussels, I received a flood of emails, phone calls and messages from participants and interpreters scheduled to arrive from 13 different countries who were unable to reach Belgium.
The stakes of the meetings were high. The organisational effort of getting everyone together – after 2 years of lockdowns – had been considerable.
At 6pm that evening, I took stock of the situation on the ground: We had some participants in Brussels, some participants from the same and/or from other countries stuck at their home airports, some interpreters on site and some equally stranded elsewhere.
During the next 3 hours, I discovered the power of advanced conference technology and the pivotal role conference technicians and a committed team of interpreters can play. With the help of the two most dedicated and determined technicians and a lot of communication back and forth, a solution was designed that allowed all participants, whether in Brussels or at home, and all interpreters likewise to connect successfully.
Both meetings went ahead the next day as scheduled. The software and hardware deployed in Brussels interfaced in a technically highly complex solution, supporting an event which ran as smoothly as the proverbial swans gliding across the lake. The amount of peddling beneath the water was extraordinary.
One interpreter received a call from her airline at 5am that morning offering her an early evening flight; she interpreted remotely on day 1, rushed to the airport at close of business, caught a flight and worked from the Brussels booth the next morning. Half of the participants made it to the destination on day 2, the other half logged in online and stayed where they were.
While travel may have been a small nightmare during that week, the technical challenges were of a different magnitude altogether. My gratitude and respect for our solution providers took on a new dimension. Our long-term take-aways have been: a creative, solution-focused, state-of-the art technical provider is worth their weight in gold. A committed interpreter team of versatile travellers, unfazed by any eventualities and ready to surmount any obstacles is as crucial as a group of excellent linguists. And: All meetings need to be planned with an in-built virtual component, to be activated in case of a volcanic ash cloud, an air controller strike, icy weather conditions and – strike.
What is a ‘Translator’?
What is a ‘Translator’?
Author: Ulrike Fuehrer | Director at Context
“A big round of applause to our translators without whom this meeting would not have been possible”. The world thinks very highly of conference interpreters. How can they possibly listen and speak at the same time, and render in a different language what they just heard, with a delay of only 3 seconds, or even finish the sentence before the key note speaker who is racing through their presentation at breakneck speed.
While I have interpreted hundreds of meetings of this kind and assisted heads of state and government on their various missions abroad, my own admiration and deep respect goes to a different group of ‘translators’: those who facilitate communication with refugees and victims of war in reception centres, who assist the family of a terminally ill patient in a hospice, who communicate bad news to the parents of a new born baby, those who assist busy nurses, stressed front-line staff, prosthetic surgeons, A&E staff trying to manage long lines of patients on trolleys. All in the one day, every day.
I’m speaking of our freelance community interpreters.
Every community interpreter I have met is motivated by humanitarian aspects, by the desire to help, to facilitate communication, to make a meaningful contribution to having patients, clients, refugees, children, vulnerable adults provided with adequate support.
Community interpreters are a typically underpaid, underrated, untrained cohort of linguists without whom, however, equal access to public services would not exist. Their fate is largely determined by public procurement; where working conditions are set by tender competitions, and where service quality is compromised by rates per hour (or even per minute), dictated by a tendering authority.
If we want to create a robust and sustainable job profile for community interpreters who choose this as a career path and develop to become the best professionals they can be, we need to talk about budgets, about ownership and about political will. Training and professionalisation for community interpreters come at a cost. There are some – albeit rudimentary – training courses currently available, and comprehensive training expertise in community interpreting does exist in Ireland.
Where simultaneous conference interpreters (who process the spoken word in real time) and translators (of written text) have university degrees and the prospect of or actual experience of an adequate income, community interpreters struggle to make a living from their service. Despite the key role community interpreters play in making health care, education, local government services etc. accessible for everyone.
15 years ago, the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism (NCCRI) was about to set up a state register of trained and accredited community interpreters, when the banking crisis defeated this project. Waiting for the tide to turn again does not address the current, urgent need for qualified community interpreters of a broad range of languages. At Context, we do what we can to recruit, onboard, support, train and professionalise hundreds of community interpreters to take on the daily challenges. We try to motivate our freelancers and fight for their recognition. Every respectful service user is appreciated. Every positive comment helps.
What is your experience, as an interpreter, service user or observer?