The proposed paradigmatic change in the WSF process involves methodological, organizational and logistic transformation. This change is essential for the construction of a more inclusive, democratic, and participatory WSF, and for the advancement of the process as a whole. Voluntary work should be an inherent component of this advance, which should integrate cultural processes, a sustainable space with solidary economy and free knowledge practices, and widely projected communication. The Organizing Committee (OC) and all the entities involved with the WSF should consider these elements as political dimensions of the process.
This change should also involve our approach of translation in its linguistic, cultural and technical aspects. Until WSF 2003, translation was treated as another “service” to be contracted on the market. In the construction of the WSF 2005, this relation is to be radically different: it will not be treated as a mere “economic question”. We believe that translation in the WSF process is militancy. It is a matter of political action trying to ensure that movements communicating with each other in different languages understand each other and to promote the reappropriation of technical means and mechanisms of translation on the part of social movements. Translating the activities of the WSF means enabling the conscientious participation of more people and concrete contributions to free this process from mercantile relationships.
In this perspective, an important political decision is that all translation-related work (involving interpreters, translators and technicians) will be voluntary, and that the equipment takes into account the economy of solidarity and the use of free software. The voluntary interpreters and technicians are actors of the WSF process. Therefore, in the preparation of WSF 2005, translation stops being a “service” and becomes an effort of convergence and militancy: a larger diversity of languages brings a broader representation of cultures, hence higher participation.
Interpretation and translation, as well as necessary technical support, will be performed by professionals, activists and volunteers, committed to building an alternative-world and anti-war movement, multiplying the opportunities of debate and convergence between movements speaking different languages and permitting the active participation of thousands of militants in the international WSF process, whatever their mastery of various languages.
Objectives
· Translation-related work should be totally voluntary and should be performed jointly with the Babels-Nomad network.
· We will try to give priority to the participation of translators from the region of the WSF (States of Southern and South-Eastern Brazil, and countries of the Southern Cone) to create a nucleus.
· We will invite people who, besides their mother tongue, are fluent in another language and, above all, experienced professional interpreters and translators willing to do this voluntary work as militancy in favor of the alternative world and anti-war movement.
· We will focus on languages that have political symbolism in the context of the WSF (even if relatively few people speak the language, as is the case of delegates from conflict areas – Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) and especially in areas where we wish to expand the WSF, such as Africa.
· We will try to identify the specific needs of delegations from regions/countries not using the languages used by the WSF, beyond the set of official languages: Catalan, English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Telugu, Japanese, Quechua, Swahili and, if possible, Korean, Thai, Italian and German.
· Throughout the registration of activities to WSF 2005, a timeframe must be set for participating groups to request the translation of their activities.
· Participating groups should commit to facilitate the quality of translation by giving each translator access to the themes and texts of their activities to translate in advance
· Volunteers should arrive at least two days before the beginning of the WSF for integration work.
Comments:
· Participating groups that have resources to pay for translation but benefit from voluntary work will be invited to contribute to a solidarity fund supporting the work of voluntary translators (travel, food, etc.)
· Babels’s proposal relates exclusively to the WSF event. Parallel events, regardless of their relation to the WSF, are not included.
Schedule
The lists gt-traducao-fsm2005@listas.rits.org.br, poa2005@babels.org, and nomad-poa2005@apo33.org have been created.
The translation organization process should include the technical aspects (software, equipment etc. with Nomad) and communication (translation of documents and other tasks).
29/06 – Call in Portuguese, due soon in other languages.
End of July – First report submitted to the OC: number of volunteers, evaluation, location, and blueprint of an action plan on these points for the coming months.
End of July – Babels and Nomad are involved in some activities: Americas Social Forum and smaller forums in Europe.
End of July - Nomad will try to send at least two persons to the Education Forum in Porto Alegre and to the international encounter of alternative media “Our Media”. These events could be followed up by a small-scale meeting in Porto Alegre about technical issues and practices related to the local of the WSF 2005.
September – Second report submitted to the OC, on the recruitment of volunteers.
September – Small-scale meeting in Porto Alegre on technical issues and practices related to the local organization of WSF 2005.
Mid-October – Participation of Babels and Nomad in the FSE. The freeware component of Nomad should be used in all 32 auditoriums to archive all the debates in all the languages used.
Early November – We suggest to hold a meeting (with the same format as in May 2004) in Porto Alegre to resolve issues related to the organization of WSF 2005.
There will be various electronic meetings (via chat) between the volunteers involved in the organization of Babels and Nomad. Moreover, we propose to hold a monthly meeting for members of the Organization Committee, Babels and Nomad (for exact dates and times, please email the Babels Co-ordination in São Paulo/Porto Alegre at fsm-sul@babels.org,).
updated on 07/31/2010
