International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies

The From Our Lips to Your Ears project was featured in this month's bulletin from the International Association of Translation and Intercultural Studies (IATIS). Special thanks to IATIS for helping others learn about this opportunity!

The next IATIS conference will be held in Melbourne, Australia, July 8-10, 2009. The Conference theme will be Mediation and Conflict: Translation and Culture in a Global Context.

International Medical Interpreters Association

The IMIA kicked off their annual conference today with a bang! Literally, the explosion of a generator in the garage of the Boston Sheraton did cause some commotion, but the conference continued as normal.

Observant readers might have also noticed that the results of a survey were recently released regarding interpreter compensation by the IMIA. The survey showed that 25% of respondents work as interpreting service administrators, 40% work as staff medical interpreters, and 29% work as freelance medical interpreters.

More updates and information will be shared at the IMIA conference from representatives of the medical interpreting community, including a panel on medical interpreter certification that will take place tomorrow.

Medical Interpreters Network of Georgia

Congratulations to our friends at the Medical Interpreters Network of Georgia, who held their fall forum today in Atlanta! Flyers for the From Our Lips to Your Ears program will be distributed at this event, special thanks to Cindy Roat.

TAPIT Annual Conference 2007

Tomorrow the Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators (TAPIT) holds their annual conference in Nashville, and flyers for the program will be on hand, courtesy of Cindy Roat. It is wonderful to see so much activity and so many events taking place to advance our profession!

California Healthcare Interpreting Association

Special thanks to the California Healthcare Interpreting Association for sharing information about the From Our Lips to Your Ears project on the CHIA web site! Also, please see the information below for details on the next CHIA conference.

SAVE THE DATE:

CHIA’s 2008 Annual Conference March 6-7 in Los Angeles

CHIA is pleased to announce that its Eighth Annual Education Conference has been scheduled for Thursday and Friday, March 6-7, at The California Endowment’s Center for Healthy Communities. The conference center is located at 1000 N. Alameda St. in downtown Los Angeles.

The Thursday-Friday booking is new for our conferences (historically held on Friday-Saturday) and allows us to take advantage of TCE’s terrific venue, which can be explored at www.calendow.org/chc/. Please make this event an early fixture on your 2008 calendar!

Medical Interpreter Network of Georgia

I thought it might be nice to share this conference press release from our colleagues at the Medical Interpreter Network of Georgia (MING):

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

CONTACT:
Michael Jordan-Registrar
Medical Interpreter Network of Georgia
404.605.3737
michael@mingweb.org
www.mingweb.org

Medical Interpreter Network of Georgia Announces Fall Forum –September 15, 2007

Atlanta, GA, August 10, 2007 – The Medical Interpreter Network of Georgia (MING) announces its Fall Forum, to be held September 15^t, 2007, at Saint Joseph’s Hospital from 9am to 5pm.

Featured speaker at the event will be Cynthia E. Roat, MPH. Ms. Roat is a widely-recognized pioneer and authority in the emerging profession of healthcare interpreting. Founding member and former Co-Chair of the National Council of Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), as well as the primary developer of Bridging the Gap, the country’s most widely-offered training for healthcare interpreters, Ms. Roat will present the following two sessions: “Medical Interpreter Certification: A National Update”: and "Interpreting for Workers' Compensation Cases".

For additional information on the Fall Forum, contact michael@mingweb.org or visit http://mingweb.org/events_training.php.

ABOUT MING - MING is a statewide nonprofit organization with a mission to promote equal access to health care services for Limited English Proficient individuals by supporting professional medical interpretation, and by serving as a resource for medical interpreters throughout Georgia. MING’s vision is to foster and nurture a health care interpreting community that provides the highest quality of service by promoting strict adherence to national standards of practice and a code of ethics.

The From Our Lips to Your Ears project will have representation at this event and flyers will be distributed, courtesy of Cindy Roat. You may visit the project Calendar for more upcoming events.

Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators 2007 Conference

The 5th Annual Conference for the Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators will be held in Nashville, TN from September 14-16,2007. Information is now available at http://www.tapit.org. This year's conference promises to be the best yet, with something for everyone! So join your colleagues and friends for a great event!

On Friday, September 14, a day devoted entirely to medical translation and interpretation, the featured guest will be Cindy Roat, a widely-recognized pioneer and authority in the emerging profession of healthcare interpreting. Founding member and former Co-Chair of the National Council of Interpreting in Health Care (NCIHC), as well as the primary developer of Bridging the Gap, the country’s most widely-offered training for healthcare interpreters, Ms. Roat will present the following three sessions: “From Medical to Mental Health: Adjusting Interpreting Techniques to the Mental Health Settings”; “Medical Interpreter Certification: A National and State Update”: and "Interpreting for Workers' Compensation Cases".

The highlight on Saturday will be keynote speaker Marshall Morris, first member of the faculty of the Graduate Program in Translation at the University of Puerto Rico, and the developer of its Internet research course and translation internship program. His sessions will deal with editing translated texts and with translator education.

The presentation schedule for the conference can be accessed at http://www.tapit.org with detailed descriptions, speaker bios and conference registration forms. Special rates are available for students. Visit the website for full details.

Flyers for the From Our Lips To Your Ears project will be available at this event. Special thanks to Cindy Roat. Visit the project Calendar for more upcoming events.

Nebraska Association of Translators and Interpreters

The Nebraska Association of Translators and Interpreters kicks off its conference at Bellevue University today.


The 4:30 pm reception will include roundtable discussions on the following topics, hosted by subject matter experts:

• Current issues in Title VI Compliance for Limited English Proficient (LEP) Populations
• Freelance interpreting and how to start your own business
• Heritage speakers and the interpreting profession
• Interpreting for corrections and law enforcement
• Interpreting in the courts
• Interpreting in domestic violence cases
• Interpreting in the educational field
• Interpreting in the medical field
• Judicial interpreting exam for the state/consortium certification
• Language proficiency assessment
• Recent events in the development of medical certification
• Topics in translation
  

The conference is co-sponsored by:

Nebraska Supreme Court Interpreter Program

Nebraska Office on Minority Health

NAJIT - National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators

Learn more about NATI here.

Thanks to the kindness of NATI leaders and NATI conference presenters, flyers for the From Our Lips to Your Ears project will be distributed at this event.

TAHIT Annual Symposium

Our friends at the Texas Association of Healthcare Interpreters and Translators (TAHIT) will host their First Annual Symposium on Language Access August 24-25 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. You can register here.

We're happy to report that our project will have a presence at this event, as participants will be able to pick up copies of our literature there. We look forward to hearing stories from our colleagues from the health care interpreting field in the Lone Star State.

Manic Monday - Part 2

The news about our project continues to travel fast!

I heard from a colleague who belongs to the Japanese Association for Interpretation Studies (JAIT) and informed me that the association sent out information about our project via email to their members. The JAIT has about 220 members, many based in other countries as well. Thanks to Professor Kumiko Torikai for sharing information about our project! We hope to receive some stories from our colleagues in Japan, and elsewhere in the world!

I also learned that the project has reached Translatum, a forum for Greek interpreters. Special thanks to Anastasia Giagopoulou and Elena Petelos for helping us share the news about the project with our Greek interpreter colleagues, throughout Greece and around the world!

We are also grateful that the word is being spread in France as well. Sara Freitas-Maltaverne, author of the In Other Words blog, posted information about the project on her site.

Also, thanks to kind volunteers, our project will be hitting the conference circuit in full force! Flyers will be available at the following additional events throughout the U.S. in the months to come:

• "Interpreting at the End of Life", an all-day workshop at Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 4th.
• The annual conference of the Washington State Coalition for Language Access (WASCLA) in Ellensburg, Washington on September 7th.
• The annual conference of the Tennessee Association of Professional Interpreters and Translators (TAPIT) in Nashville on September 14th.
• The Fall Forum of the Medical Interpreters Network of Georgia (MING) in Atlanta on September 15th.
  

The calendar for our project has also been updated to reflect these events. Special thanks to Cynthia Roat for her kind support.

Interpreta 2007

I am thrilled to report that our project will be mentioned during the Interpreta 2007 Conference! This is the first independent (non-association) conference in the Americas designed by interpreters for interpreters. Co-presidents Lucille Barnes and José Luis Villanueva-Senchuk decided to create Interpreta in order to offer a platform where interpreters could share and learn from each other in a relaxed setting.

The conference is being held next weekend, July 28-29, 2007. There will be participants attending from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Panama, US, UK, Spain, Slovakia, South Africa, Mexico, Taiwan and Colombia.

You can read more about it at here, and be sure to take a look at the impressive list of speakers.

And a huge THANK YOU to José Luis and Lucille for expressing an interest in this project and helping us get the word out!

[Images posted here with permission]

Flurry of Activity

Wow! The last 12 hours have been quite a whirlwind!

Media Activity:

• I did an interview with a local reporter who's writing up a story about the project.
• An online travel publication (with 50,000 readers) is interested in publishing an excerpt once we have completed the book, helping travelers to understand the value of interpreters.
  
• The call for submissions has been shared on a site for freelance writers called novelspot.
• Hispanic Business and several other sources picked up the release.
• Bloggers are starting to cover the project, including one blogger based in Brazil whose blog covers false cognates and idiomatic expressions in Portuguese and English.
• Another blog dedicated to health information issues also posted our call for submissions.
• The media coverage has been generating lots of traffic to the website - hundreds of unique hits in the first few hours of "opening shop".
  

General Project Updates:

• Dozens of emails have been coming in through the project website, all of them very positive, supportive and enthusiastic! I feel blessed to have so many people helping to get the word out and encouraging interpreters to participate.
  
• The FAQ section of the website has been updated to include some of the questions that have been asked, and the FAQ document on the Downloads section has also been updated (more on this below).
  
• A colleague in Israel with a wonderful interpreting project gave me a great idea for gathering stories in language pairs that do not include English (ex. Hebrew<>Amharic). I look forward to working with her and hearing the important stories of the interpreters in her group.
  
• The kind folks at the Nebraska Association of Translators and Interpreters have agreed to share project materials at the information table during the upcoming conference to encourage participation.

Project Updates:

• One question I received from various individuals was, "Do you only want happy stories?" The short answer is, "No." We want stories that demonstrate the value of an interpreter, which is the purpose of the project. These may include a range of emotions and outcomes, including ones that are sad or negative - these can be powerful and thought-provoking. The FAQ has now been updated to include this question.
• Another common question asked was, "What about confidential information?" The short answer is, "Don't share it." In summary, all confidential and identifying information should be removed by the contributor prior to submission. Our forms require the author to indicate that this has been done before submitting the story. If this is not done and the story is selected for publication, the story will be edited accordingly. As a reminder, prior to publication, all authors will complete and sign a comprehensive release form. This happens closer to the publication stage. The updated FAQ also reflects this.
• An unexpected question I've heard multiple times is, "Can I share a story if I'm not an interpreter?" The answer is "Yes." We're looking for stories that show the value of interpreters. We may consider having a special section or supplement with these types of stories. Some of my medical education colleagues have suggested that these would be fantastic to show the "lessons learned" from the stories. We'll definitely keep that in mind as a possible follow-up material to provide.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your kind words and support for this project.