Words of Relief: Translators Without Borders’ local language translation for emergencies

Words of Relief is a Translators without Borders (TWB) project designed to provide local language translation services to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), UN agencies and other actors during humanitarian response. The project included three strands: an online multilingual library of location-specific disaster messages translated before a crisis into local languages; a spider network of professional diaspora and community-based translators; and an online platform that facilitates translation of content generated from the community affected by the disaster, via social media networks.

This case study is one of 15 undertaken by ALNAP in partnership with Elrha’s Humanitarian Innovation Fund (HIF), exploring the dynamics of successful innovation processes in humanitarian action. The case studies examine what good practice in humanitarian innovation looks like, what approaches and tools organisations have used to innovate in the humanitarian system, what the barriers to innovation are for individual organisations, and how they can be overcome. The case studies are synthesised in the summary report, ‘More than just luck: Innovations in humanitarian action‘.