Information That Saves Lives
/Do you hate going to the doctor?
Imagine you went to the doctor’s office and she held up a strange-looking medical instrument and said, “Hello friends. I want to give this opportunity now. It can die like a mosquito, but it can also save your life.”* You would probably be more than just confused—you’d be scared. And the next time you felt sick, you might avoid the doctor altogether (and tell others in your community to do the same).
This is a problem that millions of people all over the world experience every time they go to the doctor, or some well-meaning healthcare provider attempts to give them vital, life-giving information.
Nothing has brought this problem more to the forefront than the global COVID-19 crisis. Now perhaps more than ever in our lifetimes, governments and non-governmental healthcare organizations need to be able to convey accurate, lifesaving medical information to people in minority language groups—groups that traditionally have not had access to that information.
We at SIL LEAD are dedicated to helping communities use their own languages to improve their quality of life, and one of the primary ways we do that is with health localization. This means we help communities, governments, and development partners translate and adapt vital messages accurately into a community’s distinct language, culture, and context.
Since the COVID-19 crisis began, we’ve been working with our partners at SIL International to compile a database of all the minority language COVID resources available online, in as many languages as possible.
Not only are we providing this data in a free, publicly-accessible location, but we have also engaged several experts to ensure that the information comes from trusted sources. As of this past week, we have accurate medical information regarding COVID-19 available in over seven hundred languages—that’s just over ten percent of all living languages on the planet.
Compiling medical messaging about a single disease in one-tenth of the world's languages may be unprecedented, but it is also a reminder that there is much work yet to do.
Do you have local language expertise?
Are you willing to help us grow this database, potentially saving many?
If so, you can contribute in the following ways:
If you have resources to contribute to the database, please fill out our Google form.
If you have corrections or questions about the Resource Index or would like to volunteer to help, please contact languageservices@sil.org.
Thank you so much!
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* The doctor in this case meant to say, “Hello, my friend. I need to give you this shot right now. It will hurt like a mosquito, but it could save your life,” but running that message through Google translate a few times shows how little translation errors can make a big difference.