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Ebola: a crisis of language

Elrha Publication
N Berger,G Tang
01
June
2015
Output type
Journal article
Location
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Focus areas
Scaling innovation
Topics
Ebola
Children at a hand pump built by Save the Children providing clean drinking water to the local village. L-R Madina (three), Sindayo Yahya (two years, six months), Halima (four), Biru (red headscarf two years, six months), Ali (green T shirt-, seven) Save the Children began Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) projects in the Afar region of Ethiopia following an earthquake in 2009. In Afar, the WASH teams help people through providing trucked water, constructing latrines in schools and promoting better hygiene practices. Where the need is greatest, Save the Children provides water, by truck, for free. The focus is always to try to develop a sustainable, permanent water supply.|

Language was one of the main difficulties faced by humanitarian workers responding to the Ebola crisis. Information and messages about Ebola are primarily available in English or French, but only a minority of people in the three most affected countries speak either language, and translation is not always integrated into communications by aid agencies. To help address this issue, Translators without Borders (TWB) took a project it was testing in Kenya, Words of Relief, to West Africa. Words of Relief is the first translation crisis relief network in the world.

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Translators without Borders