The Powerful Work of the Committed Turkish and Kurdish Team
In the aftermath of the earthquakes that struck Syria and Turkey in February 2023, we want to highlight the amazing work of the Turkish and Kurdish teams at Respond Crisis Translation.
Our translators worked on mental health resources for survivors for our partner, Languages of Care. These resources contain crucial information on supporting one another as a community after a disaster.
The Kurdish team, as well as the Urdu team, also translated website updates into the Central Kurdish dialect Sorani for our partner Refugee Solidarity Network. These updates directed visitors to vital resources, including an inquiry page for unaccompanied minors, locations of pharmacies in earthquake zones, and identification and burial services.
This project is very close to our cause, as these linguists made this information available to Sorani speakers. That is what we stand for at Respond: ensuring that the right to equality of access to all spaces and information for people of any and all nationalities, origins, and native languages are respected in each and every context. Sorani speakers have suffered deep-rooted discrimination. The use of Kurdish in education is frequently thwarted to the extent of not even being taught as a second language. Kurds have held many campaigns related to their education. In February 2007, for instance, Kurdish students held an event at Tehran University, during which they called for teaching Kurdish in Iran’s education system, including at the University of Sanandaj. In said event, it was declared, in part, "As everyone knows, language is one of the most fundamental aspects of a nation's being. Language conveys thoughts, culture, and […]. In today's multicultural climate in the world, based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other humanitarian principles, every nation should have a right to develop and advance its language." This event resulted in some of the organizers and participants being arrested and subjected to long-term detention. To learn more on how language has been historically used as a weapon, please read this comprehensive piece by our Language Democracy Project Lead, Leila Lorenzo
In addition to responding to the post-earthquake emergency, our Turkish and Kurdish teams continue their everyday work providing language support for asylum seekers. For example, the Turkish team also worked on an asylum case for an individual, Mehmet, who reached out to us directly, asking for all his documents to be translated into English so that he could submit them to the court. Five translators worked on eight documents– a total of 24 pages of evidence. Respond Crisis Translation took this case pro bono (as we do with all cases that are requested by individual asylum seekers. When we work with asylum seekers, as opposed to organizations, we do not charge for the costs of translations, because individuals are reaching out to us because they are representing themselves, ie. they do not have an organization or law firm providing legal counsel. The generous support of Respond's individual donors and institutional grantors enabled us to compensate the linguists, thus creating income opportunities for financially-vulnerable translators and paving the way for economic justice. At Respond, economic justice is a concept that comes up often. Translation and interpretation are essential labor. For communities who have been historically marginalized, it can be a career that will positively economically impact families and, in some cases, whole communities. At the same time, allowing speakers of other languages to have access to life-crucial services and information.
We want to thank the dedicated linguists in the Kurdish and Turkish teams. This work would not be possible without you!! We also want to shout out our partners for relentlessly serving the immigrant communities. We are proud to support your work!
Press inquiries: media@respondcrisistranslation.org