Sierra Leone: Ebola

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Monday 30th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I would like to draw attention to a group of people whose work is rarely acknowledged but who have been vital to the recovery from Ebola in Sierra Leone and elsewhere: the interpreters and translators who work alongside health professionals on both treatment and prevention. I am most grateful for information from the organisation Translators Without Borders—or TWB—which has been an essential part of the recovery in Sierra Leone. I pay warm tribute to its work. I should also declare my own interest as vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

When Ebola took hold the initial response was painfully slow, as we have heard, and language was one of the main difficulties faced by humanitarian workers. Language is not usually seen as a priority in emergency responses and, as a result, misinformation and panic can spread quickly. Information was available mainly in English or French, but only a minority of people spoke either of these. In Sierra Leone, only 13% of women understand English. Most Sierra Leoneans, particularly in rural areas, speak Krio, Mende and Temne. This led to important knowledge gaps: 30% believed that Ebola was transmitted via mosquitoes, another 30% thought that it was an airborne disease. Four out of 10 believed that hot salt-water baths were an effective cure, so TWB developed its Words of Relief project, the first translation crisis relief network in the world. It was funded by the Humanitarian Innovation Fund and Microsoft.

Started in Kenya in January 2014, the project extended in November that year to Ebola-affected countries. It created what TWB calls “spider networks” of crisis translators. These are virtual teams of translators trained to respond rapidly to language needs. They were based around the world, in the US, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Mali, France, Switzerland, Germany and Kenya. They were recruited because they are native speakers and have strong links to the affected countries. Their language skills were vetted and they underwent high-quality, rigorous, expert online training, even ensuring that correct dialects were being used. Hundreds of Ebola-related items were translated and disseminated, including posters, videos, cartoons and maps. One of the most effective outputs was a series of simple posters that suggested ways to prevent the spread of Ebola, describing symptoms and emphasising the urgency of medical attention. Others targeted children and other carers.

However, the main problem was getting content from the aid agencies. TWB believes that this is partly because the agencies were stretched too thinly during the crisis, as well as due to a lack of incentive because the use of local languages is not one of the effectiveness measures for projects. Another major concern was illiteracy. According to UNESCO, adult literacy rates in the three most affected countries are below 48%. In TWB’s experience, priority needs to be given to audio and video material in local languages.

It is clear that a greater focus on translation is needed to help control crises such as the Ebola outbreak. Aid agencies and Governments alike need to collaborate and provide content for translation, and provide it quickly. Will the Minister take this issue back to his department and seek to establish a firm protocol, that wherever Her Majesty’s Government are involved—whether in an emergency response or their follow-up recovery programme, and whether through DfID directly or through funding the work of an NGO or an aid agency—explicit measures are built into the project to integrate language and translation work, and that evaluating the success of any intervention includes looking at the impact made by translators and interpreters?