All professions entail a clear business approach that aims to satisfy the inherent need of humans to access goods and services that cannot be obtained individually. This is ultimately explained by the law of supply and demand, which states that merchants offer one or more tangible or intangible products to people and companies who need them and, in exchange, said merchants receive a benefit. In recent times, this benefit has become essentially economic, although it can be exchanged for other benefits, such as advertising, promotion or cancellation of previous debts. Interestingly, we are currently living in a new era of marketing where instead of merchants meeting the needs of people and companies, these very merchants are the ones who generate new needs for people and companies, these being needs they feel must be met. Marketing and sales strategies, which have become more effective in terms of their covert “aggressiveness”, have greatly contributed to this, and it all goes to show that we live in a society in which its members acquire specific knowledge in order to practice professions that perpetuate this infinite business cycle of supply and demand. It happens both with merchants of ready-to-use products and with other professions, such as teachers or professionals who perform a function for society that is paid directly by the State, for example, emergency services and cleaning services. This is one of the key drivers of today’s society and it explains how we relate to different people with our different functions.
Nevertheless, we are increasingly aware that our knowledge not only enables us as professionals to be part of different markets, but it also allows us to share our skills with others to help in specific situations. Of course, this statement raises many questions: What are those skills? Who are the others? What are these specific situations? In a world in which professional knowledge always seems to be exchanged for an economic benefit, it seems impossible to find contexts in which we can provide professional help without any apparent benefit, but that’s where humanitarian aid comes in.
Humanitarian aid is a concept that arises as a result of situations of vulnerability in which a group of people, for example, a community, a collective, a country, etc., is left unprotected. These situations of vulnerability vary significantly and can range from war conflicts, food shortages, lack of access to water and sanitation, or discrimination without protection by government agencies. Unfortunately, in many places there are disadvantaged people who do not have access to all essential products and services. Thanks to the awareness that has been raised in the field of humanitarian aid, there are an increasing number of committed people who want to help mitigate the impact of these situations for these people. While it may initially seem that humanitarian aid consists solely of contributing money to various causes, for example, to fight hunger, provide health care or create educational institutions for literacy, it is a very important part of humanitarian aid, but not the only one. Many people decide to use their knowledge and skills to directly offer goods and services in certain situations. And, of course, the translation sector also has the opportunity to make a significant contribution in this regard.
Humanitarian translation refers to the provision of language services that does not receive an economic benefit in exchange and, ultimately, receives no benefit in general. This is because the services are performed altruistically to provide help to people who need interlinguistic mediation but who do not have the means to obtain it.
In this vein, we can highlight the enormous impact of migratory movements, which consist of the movement of people who leave their country to go to another. These movements can be driven by several causes, but the most common reason in the context of humanitarian crises are the flight from authoritarian regimes, the flight from persecution for ideological reasons and the flight from war zones. All this highlights an urgent situation in which it is not always possible to migrate to a new territory where the same language is spoken, and therefore, migrants are often received in countries where they cannot communicate due to the language barrier, thus putting them at a disadvantage.
Governments, which are aware of this situation, are responsible for providing the necessary language services at no cost to migrants. These services include the interpretation service to be able to open communication channels, the translation of official documents and even interpretation in legal proceedings. This shows the commitment and awareness of governments towards situations of vulnerability faced by migrants, which are becoming more common and more pressing.
From an individual standpoint, there are also many translators who decide to put their knowledge towards a good cause. Thus, the number of organizations that create directories of volunteer translators who offer language services to people in need has increased, optimizing process management and making the life of people suffering from conflict situations a little easier. Of course, it is important to emphasize that humanitarian translation is not exempt from the same quality requirements as a commercial translation, which is why we advocate humanitarian translation by professionals who are committed to ensuring the necessary levels of accuracy and quality.
Image reference: https://www.urbanleague.ca/new-blog/2020/5/18/mutual-aid-asking-is-as-important-as-giving
