Most people have heard about Doctors without Borders, an organization that enables doctors and nurses to provide urgent medical care in countries to victims of war and disaster. Far fewer individuals are aware of Translators without Borders, an organization that seeks to bring information to people in many of those same communities. Nataly Kelly recently sat down for an interview with Lori Thicke, co-founder of the latter organization. Their conversation follows below.

Nataly Kelly (NK): Why did you start Translators without Borders?

Lori Thicke (LT): Up until 1993, I’d done an awful lot of almost giving. I almost worked on a crisis line, almost read books for the blind, almost became a Big Sister. But I was always too busy. Then one day Medecins sans frontières (Doctors without Borders) asked my company, Lexcelera, to quote on a translation project. I asked if they needed translation often, and if giving them the words for free would be like a donation to their work. They said yes to both questions and Translators without Borders was born.

NK: What is the organization’s mission?

LT: Translators without Borders is now a worldwide community of translators with the mission of translating for humanity. Over the years, we’ve donated almost 3 million dollars in translation services, which means 3 million more dollars that can be spent on medical supplies, vaccines, rehydration kits and more.

NK: How exactly does the program work, and how many organizations has it served so far?

LT: We were fairly limited in our reach from 1993 up until the earthquake devastated Haiti. But that crisis showed us that not only are there thousands of aid groups who need humanitarian translations but there is also a critical mass of translators willing to help. So what we decided to do was to create an online platform to bring those two communities together. We started working with ProZ.com, the world’s largest translator organization. At the beginning of 2011 they created an automated Translation Center for us so that we could scale up our activities.

What happens now is that approved NGOs, or non-governmental organizations, post translation projects such as field reports, treatment protocols, websites, and so on. Once they do this, alerts go out to the translators in those language pairs. Those who are interested in the work of that particular NGO will take on a project, translate it, then return it to the platform for delivery. Most of the projects are picked up within 15 minutes.

The platform is helping us scale up by automating most of the project management tasks. Today we can easily handle projects for 100 non-profits at a time, but as our volunteer community grows, so does our capacity.

NK: How many translators are part of the network? Can anyone volunteer to translate, or do you need to be a professional translator?

LT: Right now there are around one thousand vetted translators in the Translators without Borders community, out of nearly three thousand who have taken our translation tests. It seems ungrateful to say to someone who has applied, “Thanks, but we need to test your abilities first.” But at the same time, our first responsibility is to the NGOs. We work for a number of disaster relief groups so our translations may go straight into the field, with no time for editing. That’s why we need to be able to stand behind the quality. Read more.

See: Huffington Post

Also listen to the audio interviews with Lori Thicke and Nataly Kelly published on Translator T. O.