Training third sector workers to communicate effectively through interpreters: the MELINCO project training course

ABSTRACT

Non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs) are responsible for ensuring basic human rights for socially marginalised people. In situations of migration, people’s opportunity to regularise their migratory status and to secure their fundamental rights to key public services is entirely dependent on communication with the local administration. To support these processes for those who are not fluent in the language(s) of the destination country, NGDO workers must learn how to provide effective interpreter-mediated communication services. In 2019–20, the ‘Linguistic mediation for development cooperation’ (MELINCO) project brought together a multidisciplinary team to explore and respond to the communication needs of third sector organisations serving migrant populations. It included a self-study project involving the development and delivery of a training for NGDO staff, which was aimed at helping them select, prepare, and work with interpreters. The training was delivered online and was based on a needs assessment that involved data collection with NGDO representatives and interpreters. It received highly positive evaluations by participants in terms of course design, contents, and methodology, but our analysis also yielded directions for improvement in terms of extending opportunities for debate, design of practical applications, as well as facilitating participation in virtual learning environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Community interpreting
• development cooperation
• Non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs)
• online learning
• third sector
• self-study research

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The MELINCO project website and deliverables can be accessed via https://melinco.webs.uvigo.es/

2. The knowledge acquired in MELINCO has been applied by the authors to other actions specifically aimed at providing basic urgent training to Ukrainian-Spanish interpreters.

3. Used as an umbrella term to include also International NGOs (INGOs) and Non-governmental development organizations (NGDOs).

Additional information

Funding

The research and training course presented were funded by the Spanish regional government of Galicia (Xunta de Galicia, Dirección Xeral de Relacións Exteriores e coa Unión Europea) under grant PR 815A 2019/6.