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Translation - art & business » Interpreting »
voluntary work as an interpreter
Thread poster: Beatrice Borio
Beatrice Borio
Beatrice Borio  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 05:26
German to Italian
+ ...
Mar 11, 2014

Hello,
I am a second-year student of conference interpreting in Trieste, Italy and I'd like to start doing some voluntary work as a liason or conference interpreter, in order to get some practice in real life. I really don't know where to start though - as far as I know, voluntary work is usually required by non-profit organizations which don't advertise much, so one usually has to be part of the organization to know about its interpreting needs. But I can't become part of all non-profit ... See more
Hello,
I am a second-year student of conference interpreting in Trieste, Italy and I'd like to start doing some voluntary work as a liason or conference interpreter, in order to get some practice in real life. I really don't know where to start though - as far as I know, voluntary work is usually required by non-profit organizations which don't advertise much, so one usually has to be part of the organization to know about its interpreting needs. But I can't become part of all non-profit organisations in the world in order to get some useful contacts
So what do you think are the first steps to finding this kind of voluntary work?
Thank you very much ^^
Beatrice ▲ Collapse
 
Tim Friese
Tim Friese  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 23:26
Member (2013)
Arabic to English
+ ...
Medical / Legal / Immigration Mar 12, 2014

Hi Beatrice,

I'm not sure you're going to find much volunteer work as a conference interpreter, as that is a high-paying field with a lot of corporate and institutional clients who have the money to pay. In the US, a lot of volunteer opportunities are helping poorer immigrants and refugees with doctor visits and the legal and immigration systems. I personally do a fair bit of this as my spoken languages (Spanish & Arabic) both have a lot of speakers in the US.

It seems... See more
Hi Beatrice,

I'm not sure you're going to find much volunteer work as a conference interpreter, as that is a high-paying field with a lot of corporate and institutional clients who have the money to pay. In the US, a lot of volunteer opportunities are helping poorer immigrants and refugees with doctor visits and the legal and immigration systems. I personally do a fair bit of this as my spoken languages (Spanish & Arabic) both have a lot of speakers in the US.

It seems to me that there probably isn't that much need for charity in your language pairs. Perhaps the main need would be interactions between especially older monolingual Italian professionals (doctors, etc.) and new immigrants who may speak quite good English? Or delegations of monolingual Italians abroad?

Hopefully others can give you more direction... ▲ Collapse
 
Sergei Tumanov
Sergei Tumanov  Identity Verified
Local time: 07:26
English to Russian
+ ...
ads in newspapers Mar 12, 2014

may help to find work for a volunteer

A volunteer must publish his/her ads about his/her willingness to work for free
 


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voluntary work as an interpreter


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