January 18, 2024
We are delighted to share our new Translation Index, a resource for journalists and advocates, to help bridge the gap between scientific research and community understanding. The Translation Index offers health journalists and advocates accurate translations of commonly used and essential scientific and medical terms in 10 African languages.
Journalists and community health workers are often at the forefront of helping people understand complicated science and health terms in their own languages. Providing information in the language it will be reported minimizes errors and helps journalists reach a wider audience. AVAC is grateful for the Sabin Vaccine Institute‘s support in the development of the Translation Index.
“Since many journalists in community radios may not be highly specialized, the translation of technical science terms into vernacular languages is essential for audience comprehension. This becomes particularly relevant during crises, as witnessed during the pandemic when different radio stations provided varying names for COVID-19 in the same language.”
—Esther Nakkazi, founder of the Health Journalists Network in Uganda
Since 2012, AVAC has collaborated with health journalist associations in East and Southern Africa through its Media Science Café Program to strengthen the capacity of journalists to report on HIV prevention research. In 2020, AVAC and partners expanded this work to include COVID-19 science. Today, AVAC partners with health media associations in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe to bring journalists together with researchers, implementers, civil society, policy makers, regulators and policy makers to build relationships that will foster accurate reporting of HIV, COVID-19 and other science or health stories in those countries.
Join us, Tuesday, January 23 for a webinar, Reporting the African Science Story: Decoding scientific research to support public health in Africa where we will share highlights from our Media Science Café Program. Click here to register.
“Having a platform in Malawi for communicating science in local languages is a great innovation that will also enable more of the population to be able to follow science, research and other innovation in global and public health from a scientific perspective and participate in the discourse.”
– Dingaan Mithi, journalist and JournAIDS program manager
We hope you will visit the Translation Index and join us on the 23rd.