Hebrew<>Amharic Interpreters in Israel

Today I am posting remotely from Israel, where I am attending a landmark workshop on cultural competence in health care with several colleagues, all with the goal of better serving this country's highly linguistically and culturally diverse population.

In an early post back in July, I had mentioned a wonderful project to train Hebrew<>Amharic interpreters to provide professional medical interpreting via telephone to various clinics throughout Israel.


This course was the first of its kind in Israel. The program was the initiative of Dr. Anat Jaffe, Head of the Endocrinology Department at Hillel Yaffe Medical Center, and Professor Miriam Shlesinger, Head of the Department of Translation and Interpreting Studies at Bar Ilan University. The two worked in close collaboration with "Tene Briut" coordinator Pekkado (Yossi) Gadamo; epidemiologist Dr. Eltchee Seffefe; linguist Dr. Embesse Tabbere; and Michal Schuster, a Bar Ilan doctoral student, whose work centers on intercultural issues in healthcare delivery.

The From Our Lips to Your Ears project is slated to receive contributions from interpreters in Israel, and it is hoped that many of the interpreters from this project will share their stories too.

Universidad de Alicante

Special thanks to the folks at the Department of Interpreting and Translation at the Universidad de Alicante for posting the call for submissions for the From Our Lips to Your Ears project. As the deadline for submissions draws nearer, the stories keep coming in from around the world. Looking forward to some great submissions from España.

Interpreters who are interested in learning more about the programs at this wonderful university can check out its web site, here.

Translation Ireland

I had previously mentioned and thanked John Kearns for his excellent help in spreading the word about the From Our Lips to Your Ears project.

Now, I wish to thank him for sending me a copy of the excellent journal, Translation Ireland, a special issue called "New Vistas in Translator and Interpreter Training".

The special issue has some wonderful papers related to interpreting, including:

Interpreting with Limited Training: Experiences in the Interpreting of Academic Lectures at the North-West University, South Africa by Johan Blaauw

A Skill-Based Approach to Conference Interpreting by Agnieszka Chmiel

Training Public Service Translators and Interpreters: Difficulties in an Uncharted Field by Mustapha Taibi and Anne Martin

New Challenges for Interpreting Schools by Svetlana Carsten

Translation, Localisation and Interpreting Courses in Ireland by Mary Phelan