digital inclusion Archives - CLEAR Global https://clearglobal.org/tag/digital-inclusion/ Mon, 10 Nov 2025 10:03:58 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://clearglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/cropped-CLEAR-SM-Logos_Blue-1-32x32.png digital inclusion Archives - CLEAR Global https://clearglobal.org/tag/digital-inclusion/ 32 32 Half of the world can’t participate in solutions for the climate crisis because of language barriers https://clearglobal.org/half-of-the-world-cant-participate-in-solutions-for-the-climate-crisis-because-of-language-barriers/ https://clearglobal.org/half-of-the-world-cant-participate-in-solutions-for-the-climate-crisis-because-of-language-barriers/#respond Mon, 10 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=75523 The monsoon rains came early to Pakistan in 2022, transforming rivers into roaring torrents that swallowed entire villages. In Nowshera district, as floodwaters receded […]

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The monsoon rains came early to Pakistan in 2022, transforming rivers into roaring torrents that swallowed entire villages. In Nowshera district, as floodwaters receded and displaced families sought help, language became an invisible barrier as devastating as the floods themselves. Pashto-speaking families who had lost everything found themselves unable to navigate the very systems meant to help them. “We went to the government office to register for aid, but we couldn’t explain ourselves properly. The staff didn’t speak our language, and they didn’t seem interested in helping us,” said a displaced person to researchers who studied the vulnerabilities of flood-affected communities. The forms, the health advisories, and the bureaucratic processes often exist in languages that create walls between desperate people and the assistance they urgently need.

This isn’t an isolated failure, but a symptom of a much larger problem. As climate disasters multiply worldwide, language barriers are turning humanitarian crises into communication catastrophes.

A common problem for thousands of languages

Across the world, approximately 3.3 to 3.6 billion people live in regions of high climate vulnerability sprawling across Africa, South Asia, South and Central America, and small island states scattered across rising seas. Aside from climate hotspots, these areas are where humanity’s estimated 7,000 languages flourish in their greatest diversity. In these very regions where the climate emergency hits hardest, the tapestry of human speech is most complex.

Consider the mathematics of vulnerability: the three countries facing the highest risk from natural disasters are linguistic powerhouses. The Philippines, facing recurring typhoons that grow stronger with warming oceans, is home to over 120 languages. Indonesia, an archipelago slowly being submerged, shelters approximately 800 languages among its islands. India, facing catastrophic heat waves, droughts, and floods, speaks 123 major languages – and that’s before counting hundreds of smaller languages that don’t make official statistics.

In order to face up to the climate crisis, populations are in need of plenty of information that is often not delivered in their language. This includes climate resilience programs, training on drought-resistant farming techniques, and early warning systems for extreme weather. But the language gap becomes even more acute during emergencies, when people desperately need evacuation instructions, locations of emergency shelters, trauma counseling services, information about their displacement rights, access to health services, legal assistance navigating compensation programs… Each of these represents not just an information gap, but a justice gap, where those who need help most are systematically excluded from receiving it simply because the help arrives in the wrong language.

A barrier to participation in solution design

In West Papua, Indonesia, local communities speak languages like Dani, Yali, and Asmat – languages that evolved alongside the forests and coastlines they’ve managed for millennia. When these communities try to participate in regional climate planning meetings, they find themselves unable to do so, their profound ecological knowledge locked away behind linguistic barriers they didn’t create.

This knowledge is irreplaceable. In the Amazon, where indigenous communities speak hundreds of languages, each tongue carries detailed information about plant species, water cycles, soil conditions, and animal behavior. Yet these communities are systematically excluded from climate conferences and policy-making processes, not because they lack expertise, but because they lack the “right” languages.

The exclusion happens at every level. Local climate communicators want to help their communities understand what’s happening to their world. But translating complex climate science accurately requires resources and training. This year CLEAR Global had the opportunity to work with Aymara and Tacana Indigenous communities in Bolivia, where we developed glossaries to find precise terminology that will help in upcoming climate emergencies. 

Including language in our response to the climate emergency

These problems are replicated billions of times over across climate-vulnerable regions. Each time, the failure goes beyond the logistical issue; it’s a question of fundamental justice. If we cannot speak to people in languages they understand, we cannot help them. If we cannot hear what they’re trying to tell us in their own words, we miss the usefulness of humanity’s wisdom. And if we continue to build our global response to climate change in just a handful of dominant languages, we guarantee that the billions who live in vulnerability’s path will face the crisis alone, excluded from the very conversations that will determine their survival.

The earth is speaking through fires, floods, and storms. But humanity’s response remains trapped in just a few dominant languages, leaving billions in silence.

If this means something to you, please consider donating to CLEAR Global. We work to ensure everyone suffering the consequences of climate change can find information and be heard, no matter what language they speak.

Donate now

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]]> https://clearglobal.org/half-of-the-world-cant-participate-in-solutions-for-the-climate-crisis-because-of-language-barriers/feed/ 0 Our impact on language AI: a strategic evaluation and insight for the road ahead https://clearglobal.org/our-impact-on-language-ai-a-strategic-evaluation-and-insight-for-the-road-ahead/ https://clearglobal.org/our-impact-on-language-ai-a-strategic-evaluation-and-insight-for-the-road-ahead/#respond Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:35:15 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=74331 Access to technology still depends on the language a person speaks. While voice assistants, transcription tools, and text-to-speech systems are becoming common in major […]

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Access to technology still depends on the language a person speaks. While voice assistants, transcription tools, and text-to-speech systems are becoming common in major global languages, millions of people who speak marginalized or low-resource languages remain excluded.

To better understand CLEAR Global’s impact as an organization focused on low-resource language technology, and to guide our future direction, in June 2025 we commissioned an independent evaluation of our language technology efforts.

Key findings

The evaluation provided valuable, practical insights, recognizing CLEAR Global’s strengths while identifying areas for sharper focus.

What CLEAR Global is doing well

  • High-quality language data collection: CLEAR Global’s ability to collect, curate, and release reliable language datasets for under-resourced languages is widely recognized, with partners like Digital Umuganda highlighting the difference our tools make. 
  • Global reach and trusted brand: with more than 100,000 linguists connected to the TWB (Translators without Borders) Platform, CLEAR Global has an exceptional global network and reputation that helps us drive complex, multi-partner, and multi-language projects.
  • Project management and coordination: the team excels in securing funding and organizing effective collaborations, ensuring language technology projects come to fruition. 

Where CLEAR Global needs to refocus

  • Leveraging industry-standard models for training, while contributing high-quality datasets from CLEAR Global to fine-tune and enhance their performance.
  • Concentrate technical capacity on core competencies: taking on areas like app development, model training, and server hosting has spread resources thin and distracted the teams from core strengths.
  • Think about sustainability ahead of development: many technology projects have ended after the pilot phase, often due to funding priorities and limited pathways for handover to local partners.

Strategic direction

The evaluation has helped clarify the next steps. CLEAR Global will focus on where we add the most unique value while building partnerships where others excel.

Priorities moving forward
  • Data leadership: we will double down on producing high-quality, open, ethical, and well-documented datasets for low-resource languages, optimized for platforms like Hugging Face.
  • Expanding TWB Voice: by making our data collection tool, TWB Voice, available to external organizational partners or local communities, offering tools needed to engage their communities and activities, we provide an opportunity for others to autonomously collect data and develop their own language AI.
  • Empowering the TWB Community: CLEAR Global will aim to provide communities with more opportunities to engage in language AI development through tasks such as evaluation, rating, and validation. These activities are essential to ensuring that AI tools are inclusive, fair, and representative of marginalized language speakers.
Why it matters
  • As AI and language technology advance, there’s a real risk that communities speaking under-resourced languages will be left behind. Many of the world’s most widely used models simply don’t serve these languages well or at all.
  • CLEAR Global has a unique role to play not by competing with major tech companies but by providing the essential data, expertise, and community engagement needed to build inclusive, ethical, impactful language technologies.
  • By focusing on our strengths and working in partnership with organizations that can scale solutions, we help ensure that everyone, regardless of language, can be part of global conversations.

     

The opportunity ahead

This strategic realignment positions us to solidify our role as a global leader in data for low-resource language technology, while driving new partnerships with academic institutions, social impact actors, and technology companies. It will open doors to new funding streams that prioritize ethical AI and inclusion, and it will reinvigorate our linguist community by providing meaningful, empowering, and ongoing opportunities to collaborate and contribute.

This evaluation affirms that we are progressing toward our intended goals. CLEAR Global’s greatest impact lies in leveraging our global community and expertise in data collection to help close the language technology gap.

With a focused strategy, strong partnerships, and an empowered linguist community, we can help make language technology work for everyone, in every language.

Together, we can build a future where every language and every voice are heard.

For partnerships or more information, contact us at info@clearglobal.org.

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]]> https://clearglobal.org/our-impact-on-language-ai-a-strategic-evaluation-and-insight-for-the-road-ahead/feed/ 0 The right information in the right language for Myanmar humanitarian staff https://clearglobal.org/the-right-information-in-the-right-language-for-myanmar-humanitarian-staff/ https://clearglobal.org/the-right-information-in-the-right-language-for-myanmar-humanitarian-staff/#respond Fri, 27 Jun 2025 08:16:41 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=72762 Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to collaborate with Internews, with funding from the H2H Network, to strengthen the aid sector in Myanmar. […]

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Earlier this year, we had the opportunity to collaborate with Internews, with funding from the H2H Network, to strengthen the aid sector in Myanmar. Recognizing the critical importance of ensuring that the right people have access to the right information in the right language, Internews developed courses designed to help humanitarian staff counter dis- and misinformation. CLEAR Global supported this initiative by translating the materials into the Myanmar language, aiming to expand access to vital training resources.

This work is particularly relevant in Myanmar, a country facing complex challenges, including a devastating earthquake that occurred in March 2025. This event has led to a significant loss of life, with the death toll climbing to over 3,600 according to the military government. In the aftermath of crises where urgent relief is needed, having information in the right language can make a crucial difference, supporting both affected communities and humanitarians on the ground, and highlighting that accurate, timely information is itself a vital form of aid.

Prioritizing language, trust, and accessibility

In times of such a profound crisis, the way humanitarian aid is delivered is critical. Organizations on the ground need to provide actionable information to help people make well-informed decisions. This involves communicating clear, usable information on critical topics using channels, formats, and especially languages that people prefer and trust. Working with diverse and trusted local actors, such as NGOs and media, is essential for disseminating messages widely, particularly to hard-to-reach communities. A key challenge in emergencies is countering mis- and disinformation with consistent, accurate information. This requires monitoring rumors in multiple languages, verifying facts, and engaging in a cycle of listening and conversation with communities.

A fundamental aspect of effective communication in humanitarian response is ensuring messages are understood by the affected population. This means considering the diverse dialects and languages of affected people in communication strategies. Additionally, it is crucial to pay special attention to differences in written and spoken language needs to ensure those with lower literacy have equal access to information. Incorporating standard questions on language and communication preferences in needs assessments and disaggregating data by language can reveal where language marginalization might be causing gaps in access to services. Prioritizing trusted channels for disseminating accurate information is vital, ensuring consistent messaging across different levels and languages.

Recognizing the critical need to address information challenges, including the spread of misinformation, Internews developed resources to support local aid providers in Myanmar. Among these resources were two key courses designed to equip humanitarians with the skills needed to navigate complex information environments in a crisis context. CLEAR Global collaborated with Internews in translating these courses into Myanmar language.

Strengthening crisis response through information risk assessment and community engagement

One of the courses, “Information and Risks: A Protection Approach to Information Ecosystems”, is a self-paced online training and guidebook. It supports humanitarians, protection specialists, and local media in assessing and mitigating the risks people face when accessing, creating, and sharing lifesaving information during a crisis. This course highlights how understanding misinformation is crucial for reducing other protection risks. It offers an analytical framework for designing tools and collecting data on information-related protection risks. It also provides guidance on safe and accessible feedback and complaint mechanisms and on how to engage safely with communities.

The second course, “Managing misinformation in Myanmar” (access available once you create an account in the Internews Studio), is an introductory online training designed for humanitarian staff working within the country. The course aims to improve knowledge of what misinformation is and its ramifications in humanitarian contexts. It helps participants distinguish misinformation from other false or unverified information, such as disinformation. A core objective is to reduce the spread and impact of misinformation through community engagement. The course covers key terms and concepts related to responding to misinformation, its impact in humanitarian crises, the psychological reasons people believe and share it, and presents a practical approach involving community listening, verifying information, and responding meaningfully. The sources emphasize that managing misinformation is a core skill for humanitarian workers because it directly impacts the ability to deliver safe, effective, and impactful aid. Addressing misinformation ensures effective communication, fosters community trust, and enhances the overall impact of humanitarian efforts.

This is where the contribution of CLEAR Global became vital. Recognizing the critical importance of reaching local aid providers in their preferred and most accessible language, CLEAR Global assisted Internews in translating these crucial training courses into Myanmar.

By enabling these detailed and practical courses on assessing information risks and managing misinformation to be delivered in the local language, CLEAR Global played a vital role in ensuring effective humanitarian assistance. This translation work helped ensure that staff on the ground in Myanmar could effectively understand and apply the principles of safe community engagement, risk assessment, and misinformation management. Ultimately, this contributes to the delivery of accurate, timely information: a critical form of aid that helps communities to build resilience and recover from crises.

Access the courses:

See also:

This project was funded by the H2H Network’s H2H Fund, which is supported by UK aid – from the British people.

Internews

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]]> https://clearglobal.org/the-right-information-in-the-right-language-for-myanmar-humanitarian-staff/feed/ 0 We have a plan to expand language AI for social impact: join us! https://clearglobal.org/we-have-a-plan-to-expand-language-ai-for-social-impact-join-us/ https://clearglobal.org/we-have-a-plan-to-expand-language-ai-for-social-impact-join-us/#comments Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:18:57 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=71311 CLEAR Global has a plan to radically expand the availability of language AI for speakers of marginalized languages, in partnership with other social impact […]

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CLEAR Global has a plan to radically expand the availability of language AI for speakers of marginalized languages, in partnership with other social impact organizations.

We have a record of pioneering and advocating for the development of language technology for marginalized communities – opening the way for others. 

  • Our early automatic speech recognition and machine translation for Kurdish and Tigrinya outperformed the models available at the time.
  • Our offline information kiosk in Bihar, India answered farmers’ spoken questions on climate adaptation in their own language when literacy and connectivity were problematic.
  • We built chatbots using conversational AI to answer people’s questions on Covid-19 in Lingala, Congolese Swahili, Hausa and Kanuri when most Covid chatbots were menu-based.

 

Working with other language tech experts in Africa and South Asia in particular, we have shown how language technology can be made accessible and useful for more of the 4 billion people worldwide excluded by language from information, services and conversations.

You can help make that change.

Advances in technology and untapped potential in the social impact sector present a unique opportunity to accelerate that progress and ensure it benefits speakers of less powerful languages. We would love to work with you on making that happen.

What needs to happen?

Our analysis is that the biggest bottlenecks at present are:

  • A shortage of diverse, good quality language data (especially voice) for marginalized languages
  • A lack of awareness among social impact organizations about what is possible
  • A lack of information on what communities need and want

Very little voice data exists for most of the world’s languages, and what does, is fairly undiverse: young male voices from the cities predominate, as do the accents and dialects of more prosperous regions. That means that if the aim is to communicate with women farmers in rural areas, for instance, the application is likely to fail. 

While language AI is bringing change to the social impact sector as it is elsewhere, many of the organizations involved are unfamiliar with language AI or  lack the capacity to use or help build it. 

We aim to:

  • Build diverse voice datasets and support other social impact organizations to do the same – tapping into a largely unmined potential of language data for marginalized language speakers, in ways that reflect their needs and wishes and are durably safe for the individuals concerned
  • Collaborate on building voice models, integrating them into useful applications, and documenting their impact
  • Research and collaborate on and advocate for centering language technology development on the needs of people excluded by language

How you can be part of it

  • Explore the potential of language technology for reaching and hearing from marginalized language speakers: integrate it into your programs and services and contribute to improving and promoting its impact. 
  • Help build a consensus on and support for safe and ethical pooling of language data for marginalized languages and for using it to expand access to services, information and conversations.
  • Collect and share language data safely and ethically.
  • Work with us to understand what marginalized communities need from language tech and how best to consult them.

How CLEAR Global can help

  • To learn more, read about and share information on our work and learning to date, or contact us to set up a call.
  • To help build language data, contact us about using our TWB Voice platform or getting our support to share text or voice data safely in other ways.
  • To integrate language tech for marginalized language speakers into your work, get in touch to discuss how we can support you with information, capacity building and language models.
  • To get a better understanding of community needs, we can support you with research and data collection.

About TWB Voice

TWB Voice is CLEAR Global’s latest contribution to building voice data by facilitating quality-controlled voice recordings in any language to meet the needs of automated speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) technology. 

-A platform for quality-controlled voice data collection

-A growing repository of open-source voice data

-Access to the 100,000-strong TWB Community of linguists

-Voices accurately classified by age group and gender to aid appropriate use

How you can use TWB Voice

If you are looking to expand into new languages, we can work with you to build the voice datasets and develop the models needed for speech recognition and text-to-speech. We can also advise on integrating them into your existing services if needed.

Because we aim to expand the reach of language AI for marginalized languages, the goal is to publish datasets as open-source whenever possible, with the full consent of contributors and in compliance with ethical data management and AI use. If that won’t work for your datasets, coordinate with our experts on the needs of your language data project.

Other language tech support

If you are interested in building language datasets over time from your own digital communication with communities, we can advise and support on setting this up.

We also offer user research services to help tailor technology-enabled solutions to the needs of your intended users.

Please get in touch!

We work with a wide range of technologists, civil society organizations, international aid providers and governments to build language AI and other solutions to language exclusion. We want to hear from you if you have needs we can help address, and if you have capacity, ideas or learning we can build on together.

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]]> https://clearglobal.org/we-have-a-plan-to-expand-language-ai-for-social-impact-join-us/feed/ 2 Digital and language inclusion can transform lives — here’s how https://clearglobal.org/digital-and-language-inclusion-can-transform-lives-heres-how/ https://clearglobal.org/digital-and-language-inclusion-can-transform-lives-heres-how/#respond Wed, 04 Dec 2024 14:17:49 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=70882 Up to now, the advances in language technology that lie behind tools like ChatGPT, Alexa, and Google Translate have only worked for speakers of […]

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Up to now, the advances in language technology that lie behind tools like ChatGPT, Alexa, and Google Translate have only worked for speakers of a few dozen languages. But in a wider range of languages, they could dramatically impact the lives of millions of people. They could enable those displaced by war and disasters to access critical information and services in their own languages. 

That is why CLEAR Global is a pioneer and an advocate for the development of language technology for marginalized communities. Working with other language tech experts in Africa and South Asia in particular, we have shown how language technology can be made accessible and useful. 4 billion people worldwide speak marginalized languages for which technology solutions do not yet exist. We are working towards ensuring they have access to essential information, services and conversations.

Advances in technology present radically expanded opportunities to accelerate progress and ensure it benefits speakers of less powerful languages. But investment in language AI remains highly unequal, driven in part by a sense that ‘nothing can be done’ for the 7,000 or so languages currently without functioning language technology.

CLEAR Global does not accept that nothing can be done. We have consistently pushed the boundaries in language technology by showing that much is possible with very marginalized languages. Together with linguists, technologists and civil society in the relevant countries, we have built ground-breaking language technology that challenges those assumptions:

  • We have built automatic speech recognition and machine translation for marginalized languages like Kurdish and Tigrinya that outperformed the models available at the time. This initial investment opened the door to building solutions that can help people in humanitarian emergencies get vital information in their own language.
  • We deployed an offline information kiosk in Bihar, India that answered farmers’ spoken questions on climate adaptation in their own language. With the right technology they no longer struggled with poor connectivity and low literacy; the information they wanted was available in the audio form that was easiest for them.
  • We built chatbots using conversational AI to answer people’s questions on Covid-19 in such neglected languages as Lingala, Congolese Swahili, Hausa and Kanuri. Unlike the menu-based bots commonly deployed during the pandemic, Uji in DRC and Shehu in Nigeria allowed users to put questions in their own words. 
  • Chatbot Hajiya, in northeast Nigeria, uses conversational AI to respond to questions in 4 languages: Shuwa Arabic, Hausa, Kanuri and English. That’s not all: it can accommodate the common practice of switching between those languages, understanding for instance when a user drops an English word into a Kanuri sentence. 

The next step is to enable users to engage with our chatbots using speech not text – ensuring that everyone, regardless of background or education, can easily ask questions directly and confidently. To enable that, our latest innovation is TWB Voice. This tool, currently in development,  addresses the gaping shortage of voice data in marginalized languages by providing a platform for collecting the speech data needed to build voice technology for languages like Shuwa Arabic, Hausa and Kanuri.

These innovations have far-reaching practical applications for speakers of the world’s less powerful languages. They hold the potential to even up access to information and services by enabling conversations in the user’s own language. They can make it possible for someone who can’t read or write to raise concerns, hold authorities to account, and contribute their knowledge and insights to national and global conversations. 

Critically, they show that digital language inclusion is possible, and can motivate others to work towards that goal too. So that people can get the information and support they need when they need it, whatever language they speak.

We rely on generous support from sponsors, individuals and foundations that share our vision of a world in which people can get vital information, and be heard, whatever language they speak.

Every gift matters. 

Help us to:

  • Make content available for speakers of marginalized languages,
  • Support humanitarian organizations to offer multilingual services to effectively provide safety for affected populations,
  • Build technology that bridges the language gap so fewer people face these challenges.
DONATE TODAY

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]]> https://clearglobal.org/digital-and-language-inclusion-can-transform-lives-heres-how/feed/ 0 Breaking down language barriers in oncology https://clearglobal.org/breaking-down-language-barriers-in-oncology/ Wed, 31 Jul 2024 15:47:53 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=69318 Effective communication bridges cultures and drives progress. With 7,000+ languages worldwide, TWB and Evidence Aid rise to the challenge. Let’s learn together!

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Breaking down language barriers in oncology

The vital partnership between CLEAR Global and ecancer

Breakdown of projects undertaken by CLEAR Global for ecancer

“As an oncologist at ecancer, our collaboration with CLEAR Global/Translators without Borders has been transformative. Their expertise in translation ensures our oncology content reaches healthcare professionals globally.”
Dr Federic Bakal, Fundación Arturo Lopez Perez (FALP), Chile

CLEAR Global is proud to collaborate with partners dedicated to making a difference in the lives of people around the world. By supporting them in their missions, we can achieve our own – of helping people to get vital information and be heard, whatever language they speak. 

UK-based charity ecancer is dedicated to improving cancer care globally through education. They believe cancer patients everywhere deserve the best care. By providing high-quality knowledge of cancer treatment, they help healthcare professionals to improve their skills, in contexts ranging from Latin America to India and Nepal and from Cambodia to Tanzania and Senegal. Increased access to resources and education leads to improvements in patient care.

Partner ecancer uses the Internet to share vital information in a range of languages

The organization hosts ecancermedicalscience, an open-access cancer journal that serves under-resourced communities. The journal’s goal is to help reduce global inequalities in cancer care and treatment by providing free access to all articles immediately upon publication.

The journal welcomes articles on a wide range of topics related to cancer, including molecular biology, genetics, epidemiology, and controlled trials, especially those that are independent or publicly funded. It also considers articles related to health systems, cancer policy, and regulatory aspects of cancer care. The comprehensive scope of ecancermedicalscience makes it an important platform for advancing research and knowledge in the fight against cancer, particularly in communities that might otherwise lack access to such resources.

Our partnership breaks down language barriers

“Thanks to TWB, we break down language barriers, improve accessibility, and empower diverse communities. This partnership reinforces our commitment to inclusive cancer care.”
Dr Federic Bakal, Fundación Arturo Lopez Perez (FALP), Chile

The partnership with Translators without Borders (TWB, now part of CLEAR Global) began nearly ten years ago, because ecancer were aware of the importance of language in reaching a global audience. They recognized that breaking down language barriers was crucial to achieving their mission. This understanding came from feedback received from readers, authors, and collaborators who struggled to access or understand content as a result of language issues. 

Accurate translations help healthcare professionals stay informed about global developments, share their insights, and ultimately improve patient care. CLEAR Global’s partnership with ecancer is a way of removing the language barriers that block the spread of vital medical information on cancer care, enabling diverse communities to access cancer care information in their own language. This is in line with ecancer’s mission of offering complete, patient-centered cancer care and supporting healthcare professionals in delivering quality services to people affected by cancer globally.

Culturally appropriate translation helps expand access and build trust

To achieve this, ecancer adapted their approach, prioritizing key content for translation, working with language experts, and creating user-friendly multilingual interfaces. They focused on reaching out to diverse communities in languages such as English, Spanish, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, French, German, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese.


Through its partnership with CLEAR Global, ecancer became even more aware of the role language and effective communication play in the medical field. Effective communication is more than just translation; it calls for a deep understanding of cultural differences, and adapting content accordingly. Working with language experts ensured that the content was translated according to the cultural and linguistic needs of target audiences. This led to better engagement and trust, facilitating meaningful interactions, knowledge sharing and collaboration in the global healthcare community.

In addition to content for healthcare professionals, the collaboration has extended to crucial patient-facing content. By translating and subtitling materials such as Relieving Cancer Pain at Home, The Cancer Patient’s Role in the Decision-Making Process, and resources on managing pain and the emotions that come with it, CLEAR Global and ecancer have made critical information directly accessible to cancer patients.

Oncology communication in Chile: a case study

Translation expands the influence of research findings from Latin America

The partnership also has the benefit of making the findings of research conducted in other languages available in English, enabling it to reach a wider audience and influence global practice. One such collaboration was the translation from Spanish to English of Knowledge, Practice, and Communication Barriers for Oncology Doctors in Chile When Addressing the Sexuality of their Patients.

This study examines the communication challenges oncologists in Chile face when discussing patient sexuality. Cancer and cancer treatment can greatly impact a patient’s sexual wellbeing, with consequences for their quality of life, self-image and relationships. That makes effective communication about sexual health an important aspect of oncology. The study highlights a gap between recognizing the importance of sexuality and actual clinical practice, revealing a need for institutional support and training to better integrate sexual health discussions into cancer care.

Volunteer linguists played a vital role

As the project relied on volunteer translators, the project manager, Giulia Gasperoni, sought out community members with experience in the medical field to ensure accuracy and quality. To maintain high levels of engagement and motivation, she ensured that community members had as much context and information as possible. When a community member claimed a translation task, Giulia reached out to share references and additional information. She also provided more background on ecancer and explained how the translated texts would contribute to its mission. Follow-up emails checked on the volunteers’ needs and offered assistance, making sure they knew their contribution was valued

“I am really glad that I was able to help on this project. I think this is such an important topic in today’s society and hopefully my translated words will help many people in both the present time and in the future.”

Suzanne Skirrow, TWB community member

In-kind sponsorship enabled specialist revision in a tight timeframe

Finding the right linguists from within the TWB community to revise the translation was a challenge for such a large and highly specialized text, especially as the deadline was tight. One of CLEAR Global’s in-kind sponsors, Surrey Translation Bureau, stepped in to offer the services of their linguists to complete the project. 

Established in 1984, Surrey Translation Bureau has been an in-kind sponsor of CLEAR Global for several years, formalizing its support in 2021. This work forms part of STB’s corporate social responsibility framework, which aims to make a positive impact beyond the core business operations of the company.

“We were delighted to play a small part in ensuring cancer patients can receive the highest quality information. Our role was to check the overall accuracy and consistency of the English translation, ensuring the correct terminology was used – crucial for any text being used in the medical sphere. We’re proud to work with expert medical linguists who share our values and our translator appreciated the additional context provided by the ecancer team as this helped bring the material to life, improving the overall quality of the final text. To know we’ve played a part in improving the outcomes for cancer patients is incredibly rewarding to the whole team at STB.”

Amey Higgon, Head of Project Management at Surrey Translation Bureau

Volunteer with CLEAR Global

ecancer’s success in making vital cancer research accessible underscores the crucial contribution of volunteer translators. This work directly impacts healthcare professionals and patients, helping spread knowledge and foster collaboration globally. 

 

CLEAR Global is proud to be able to offer a rewarding volunteer experience to our community members. Volunteering is a meaningful way to use your skills for the greater good while also joining a global community of dedicated individuals working to ensure people can get vital information and be heard, whatever language they speak. If you want to join the TWB volunteer community, you can register here.

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]]> Learning lessons from the past – in your language https://clearglobal.org/learning-lessons-from-the-past-in-your-language/ Wed, 24 Jul 2024 12:14:33 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=69227 Effective communication bridges cultures and drives progress. With 7,000+ languages worldwide, TWB and Evidence Aid rise to the challenge. Let’s learn together!

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Learning lessons from the past - in your language

Evidence Aid’s partnership with CLEAR Global (Translators Without Borders)

While sitting on a train to Toronto, I’m struck by the linguistic diversity around me – a woman speaking Hausa to her child, a man speaking Québécois, two girls speaking Mandarin. Countries are becoming linguistic melting pots, increasing the need for multilingual communication. In the humanitarian field, recognizing the significance of language and its cultural context is increasingly important; effective communication is essential for sharing ideas, scientific breakthroughs and medical discoveries. With over 7,000 spoken languages worldwide, this mission is both awe-inspiring and daunting, yet organizations like Translations Without Borders (TWB) and Evidence Aid (EA) are stepping up to meet the challenge.

The Collaboration: Evidence Aid and Translators Without Borders/CLEAR Global

Let’s start with the impact. Between May 2023 and 2024, Evidence Aid’s resources have been viewed 95,483 times. The most frequently visited translated articles in both Italian and French were on Anemia and iron metabolism in COVID-19 patients, amassing 2,937 combined views. Similarly, the Spanish version of an article about Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) containing low or no dairy compared to standard RUTF for children with severe acute malnutrition got 535 views, compared to the English version which got just 22 views. More broadly, Evidence Aid had 53,226 users in the past year, with Italy taking the lead with 3,616 users, followed by the United States with 3,503, Sweden with 3,010, and France with 2,179 users. Clearly, translations are crucial since Evidence Aid’s resources are accessed by a variety of countries.

Evidence Aid is a humanitarian organisation that improves the effectiveness of humanitarian efforts by offering free plain-language summaries of research, namely systematic reviews. This empowers stakeholders to make evidence-informed decisions. With 11 collections, Evidence Aid ambitiously covers a broad range of topics. 

Their goal is to create easily readable and accessible summaries of systematic reviews, reducing the research workload for on-the-ground organisations and providing them with effective interventions and lessons from previous emergencies and disasters.

Recognizing that global issues demand global solutions, Evidence Aid saw the need for its summaries to be available in languages beyond English. Thus, the partnership between CLEAR Global and its global community, Translators without Borders (TWB) and Evidence Aid was born. Currently, Evidence Aid receives support to translate summaries from English into eight languages: Arabic, Chinese (traditional and simplified), French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.

As noted above, the impact of this collaboration has been profound. 

Clearly, evidence-based research has a significant audience and is actively being used. These statistics also highlight the value of translations, demonstrating their widespread use!

An image of hands holding a tablet displaying a page from Evidence Aid's website

Global issues demand global solutions 

TWB’s enhancement of key aspects of Evidence Aid’s offering goes beyond improving a feature of its product. Consider that the summaries are now eight times more accessible and comprehensible. Imagine if all research was available in this way; free to use, easy to understand and easily available in a central location.

CLEAR Global/TWB also supports and advises Evidence Aid on language inclusivity and accessibility more broadly. According to CSA research (forthcoming), half of the global population doesn’t speak the top seventeen most widely spoken languages. So, while CLEAR Global encourages EA to ensure that their work is accessible in the nine major languages, they also encourage EA to consider their audience and who they really want to be able to access their work.  TWB encourages a shift in perspective, emphasising the importance of not just prioritising dominant languages associated with countries of power and authority. In a subtle but impactful way, this returns power and autonomy to marginalised and overlooked populations, giving them access to information that empowers them to make their own evidence-based decisions free from interference by dominant groups. Without the support of TWB, Evidence Aid’s audience would be eight times smaller, and accessible to eight times fewer people – let’s all learn lessons from this and make reaching as many people as we can a global priority!

Written by Jawaria (Jay) Karim, Evidence Aid

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]]> Supporting digital inclusion for Kinyarwanda speakers​ https://clearglobal.org/digital-inclusion-kinyarwanda/ Mon, 22 Apr 2024 16:52:00 +0000 https://clearglobal.org/?p=68736 Local partnerships boost language technology for communities in Rwanda

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Supporting digital inclusion for Kinyarwanda speakers

Local partnerships boost language technology for communities in Rwanda

Digital services can offer vital information, communication, and community – as long as they’re designed for the people who need them. Yet despite innovations in connectivity, service provision, and language technology like large language modeling, only a fraction of the world’s 7,000 languages are meaningfully online. For the billions already locked out, the gap is widening. 

With relevant and appropriate language technology, more of the world’s most marginalized people can access information and be empowered to make decisions that affect their lives. Learn how we work with local organizations and language communities to build relevant, sustainable solutions. 

Paul, CLEAR Global
Paul Warambo, CLEAR Global’s Senior Community Officer for 4 Billion Conversations.

Building language technology in marginalized languages helps close this digital divide

 

Kinyarwanda is the most widely spoken first language in Rwanda. Yet, like many other non-European languages, it is disproportionately underrepresented in the digital space. We partnered with Digital Umuganda, a Rwandan language technology company specializing in African languages to address language-based digital exclusion for Kinyarwanda speakers. For this project, we built and integrated a Machine Translation Plugin into Moodle, an online learning management system so users can switch between Kinyarwanda and English. This enables users of digital learning in Rwanda to access content in their language while also improving their English. The topics in this case were entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and also content on Rwanda’s tourism experience. By building machine translation (MT) capacity between English and Kinyarwanda (bi-directional) we can help the public sector improve communication with communities and access to services.

Our collaboration enabled Digital Umuganda to strengthen its technical capacity to support further projects promoting digital inclusion through language technology. It also showed how our model can catalyze sustainable technology development for marginalized languages, and make good on our commitment to localize aid. In this blog, we explore how we help local language technology experts equip themselves to address language marginalization in their own contexts. The next blog in this series on digital inclusion will look at what we learned about generating language data and building the technology to reach people in their languages.

Engaging Kinyarwanda speakers to generate language data

 

To begin creating language technology like machine translation, you need language data – digitized voice or text datasets in the right languages. Even languages with millions of speakers like Kinyarwanda may not have language datasets that are good enough to create accurate, viable, and domain-specific language technology capacity – yet.  

In order to build machine translation capacity in Kinyarwanda, we mobilized speakers from our Translators without Borders Community, the Mbaza NLP community coordinated by FAIR Forward and Digital Umuganda, and speakers from local universities such as the University of Rwanda’s School of Art Languages. We took a collaborative approach by sharing information about the project goals, the tool they would use to collect and validate language data, and the project’s intended impact. We aimed to ensure our community members had full transparency about the project and how their language data would be used. Demonstrating our commitment to transparency and open communication helped strengthen relationships and foster a sense of ownership between the community and our project team. This approach helped build trust in the technology and the overall project.

"I felt empowered knowing that our voices were being heard and valued in the development of language solutions that directly impact our Kinyarwanda community."

– Jessica Kubito, TWB Community member
People talking around a desk covered in colorful post-it notes
Photo: Yagazie Emezi/Getty Images/Images of Empowerment

We also explored different methods of data collection, on- and offline. In collaboration with Digital Umuganda, we organized a data collection hackathon in Kigali, Rwanda, where community members met in person to work together on generating Kinyarwanda language data. While in-person data collection is more costly, it ensures that people without access to devices or a stable internet connection can engage. It gave community members the opportunity to share their opinions, ask questions, and express any concerns about the data collection tool we were piloting. The datasets collected can be accessed online: e-learning content, tourism experience.

“It was refreshing to see that the project team genuinely cared about our input and feedback. This collaborative approach made me feel confident that the language solutions being developed would truly meet our needs."

– Juvan Mutsinzi, hackathon participant

Understanding communities’ linguistic challenges and needs to design user-centered solutions

 

Community engagement played a pivotal role in ensuring that the language solutions we created were tailored to the local community’s specific needs and preferences. CLEAR Global’s project team gained valuable insights into linguistic challenges, cultural nuances, accessibility challenges, and user expectations through active involvement and collaboration with Digital Umuganda. The sense of ownership fostered by involving Kinyarwanda linguists online and on-site ultimately led to more effective and impactful language solutions that have since been applied in use cases beyond this project’s scope. 

Communities and organizations know their context best

 

We collected localized, domain-specific language data on relevant topics offered through digital learning – entrepreneurship, digital literacy, and Rwanda’s tourism experience. One example of a linguistic challenge faced was how to render in Kinyarwanda concepts related to education systems and knowledge sharing. Knowledge acquisition in Kinyarwanda is embedded in traditional customs and practices. Linguists had to find appropriate phrases that were both accurate and would not risk representing educational content as elitist or reproducing colonial ways of thinking. The Kinyarwanda linguists working on the data collection adapted and contextualized the text. Their input helped ensure the text we used to develop our machine learning tool was appropriate and relevant to the users’ needs. 

To make the most of the community’s engagement we facilitated two-way communication channels between our project team, linguists, and hackathon contributors. This allowed for continuous feedback and iteration to enhance the data collection tool. By actively inviting input and feedback from the tool’s end-users, the project team gained insights into some of the requirements of a more user-friendly tool. For example, Kinyarwanda linguists expressed a preference for a solution with intuitive navigation capabilities and a user-friendly interface. Language data collectors also emphasized the importance of making the language data collection platform easily accessible to individuals with varying levels of digital literacy, ensuring simplicity in interaction and reducing the need for extensive training. They highlighted the need for more logical features that enhance the overall user experience.

A group of Kinyarwanda-speaking TWB Community members in Kigali, Rwanda at the Digital Transformation Center Rwanda
Kinyarwanda-speaking TWB Community members in Kigali, Rwanda at the Digital Transformation Center Rwanda

Collaboration builds agency, trust, and more effective language technology 

 

Sustainable social impact requires local ownership and long-term commitment. We value the insights of communities such as Mbaza NLP and local organizations – they simply know their context best. When planning projects, we prioritize participatory decision-making to ensure key stakeholders have the agency to shape effective, inclusive, and sustainable initiatives that benefit their communities.

Partnering with local community-based organizations and people experiencing digital exclusion helps us develop digital initiatives that address their unique challenges. Collaboration with end-users from the start also promotes acceptance and adoption of digital interventions within the community. Considering localized challenges, community needs, language and format preferences, and sociocultural dynamics helps us identify relevant use cases for language technology – and assess when a digital solution might not be the best option. 

We have now handed over ownership of the machine translation tool to Mbaza NLP, ensuring the community continues to develop and apply the technology to other use cases beyond this project’s lifespan. Our collaborative approach strengthens our partners’ capacity to address access challenges, helping communities get vital information and be heard long after the project is completed. Digital Umuganda and the local community are now better placed to develop future language technology in even more languages to support other communities at risk of digital exclusion. By pooling our resources and leveraging existing technology infrastructure, we can increase the quality of existing technology, avoid redundancies, and scale our social impact solutions more efficiently.

Starting 4 billion more conversations

 

Four billion people – half the world’s population – are still excluded from important global conversations because their languages are underrepresented online. Our Four Billion Conversations movement #4BC aims to change that with initiatives like the Language AI Playbook to help social good partners integrate technology and mobilize communities. 

Our tech team has supported digital language inclusion in various contexts and languages:

– Learn how our pilot project, TILES (Touch Interface for Language Enabled Services), supported Hindi-speaking farmers in India to access information about climate change mitigation strategies.

– Explore Kompas, our multilingual artificial intelligence platform, curates verified, up-to-date information for people affected by the war in Ukraine.

– Discover chatbots like Shehu, using natural language understanding to answer questions about COVID-19 in Hausa, Kanuri, and English in Nigeria.

– Read our ebook to learn more about how language and communication are key to achieving sustainable development, climate change action, and health care for all.

Do you want to work with us to support digital inclusion in your language?

 

Click here to partner with us.

With thanks to our technology and funding partners:

Digital Umuganda 

Digital Umuganda is an AI and open data company with a mission to enable access to information in local African languages. Digital Umuganda creates open-source datasets, models and tools that make it possible for NLP including Large language models to work for marginalized communities that speak underresourced languages. Learn more at digitalumuganda.com

 

Digital Transformation Center Rwanda

The Digital Transformation Center is a Rwandan-German initiative aimed at developing impact-driven digital solutions in Africa. Therefore, it not only provides advisory services and training for government institutions and local tech companies, but also a modern space to boost creativity and collaboration. Learn more at digicenter.rw

 

GIZ Fair Forward: 

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (“GIZ”) implements the project “FAIR Forward – Artificial Intelligence for All” which strives to create a more open, inclusive, and sustainable approach to AI on the international level, and more specifically, to develop artificial intelligence ecosystems locally across its seven partner countries (Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, India and Indonesia). For more information, visit FAIR Forward – Open data for AI (bmz-digital.global)

 

Written by Paul Warambo, Senior Community Officer, and Emily Elderfield, Advocacy Officer, CLEAR Global

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