Volunteer Translation

I just finished a French to English volunteer translation job that I got through Ashoka volunteers, and I'm feeling very good about it.  Although, I've done some volunteer translating in the past, I found this experience especially rewarding because I learned a lot of useful vocabulary from the financial field. 

Volunteer translations are a great way to get some free translation practice, because unlike simply translating articles and texts from published works for practice, you get to see how it is for a real freelance translator.  Although you're not getting paid, you do have an actual "client" that you're working for and there is an actual deadline to meet, so you get to work on your professionalism and your client relation skills, which are important aspects of the translation business.  Also, it's a good way to get references to show to future (paying) clients.

 Here are some sites where I've found volunteer translation jobs in the past:

 Ashoka Volunteers: www.ashoka.org

They have a newsletter that they send out periodically, which is where I found this last job that I did.  They pretty much always have translation jobs advertised on the newsletter, so this is a really good place to start, especially for speakers of Spanish or French.

Changemakers: www.changemakers.net

Changemakers is an organization that focuses on social entrepreneurship. It provides solutions and resources needed to help everyone become a changemaker and presents compelling stories that explore the fundamental principles of successful social innovation around the world. They are constantly holding "competitions" for proposals on social entreprenuership. There is usually a cash prize for the best proposal, and entrants come from all over the world, so a lot of the  proposals have to be translated into English.

Idealsit.org – Action without borders: www.idealist.org

You can do a search through their "Volunteer opportunities" link and find all sorts of volunteer jobs, not just in translation.

 Volunteer Match: www.volunteermatch.org

Do an advanced search and enter keyword "translation"

Another way to get free translation practice is to offer to translate websites.  There was a Columbian organization that advertized in Ashoka last year that they needed some things translated into English, so I e-mailed them and offered my services.  Unfortunately, they said that they had already found someone to translate the documents for them but that they would keep my info on file for any future translation needs. Now, just yesterday I happened upon their site when I was researching volunteer translation sources to list in this post, and I noticed that their "English version" page was still "under construction". Since I still had the e-mail address of the organization's president, I decided to send him an e-mail offering to translate their website into English.  This time he was more than happy to take me up on my offer.  Here's what he wrote:

"Muchas gracias, [TW]. Pronto te mandaré unos documentos para que me ayudes con el inglés. Me será muy pero muy útil."

So, now I'll get some website translation experience and another reference to give to future "paying" clients! Sweet Deal!

HAPPY TRANSLATING, EVERYONE!

TW

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