Translation's Triple Bottom Line

I have always considered In Every Language to be a social enterprise. The community nature of what we do is inherent. We take what one man is trying to say and make it so another man can understand it. Without us, information would be unable to correctly pass between entire cultures and countries. Being a translator automatically means being a helper. As language service providers (LSP’s), we do not have to integrate social cause into our business model, because, regardless of the message translated, the social benefit is in the act of translating the message itself.

I knew this when I started In Every Language. I had recently left a career in television and was looking for something to give purpose to my life—a way to help people. I started volunteering as an interpreter for Francophone Africans settling in Louisville. Somewhere along the line, I started getting paid. Any other job I had or took on seemed fruitless, without soul. It was only when I was interpreting that I felt like I was fully alive, like I was contributing, like I was using a gift God had given me to benefit others. When I interpreted, I disappeared and became a catalyst for change. The tremendous capability that translating and interpreting have to help others is why I got into this business. This focus on helping was always there—developing it into a business came later.

As I learned more and more about how to run a company it became, oddly enough, harder to help. Not everyone seemed grateful or even willing to receive what In Every Language had to offer. The director of a local refugee resettlement agency even accused me of trying to monopolize on “poor refugees” and of taking advantage of them for personal gain. Having started this company purely to provide a service to the community, these words stung and I searched my and my company’s behavior, trying to figure out what had led her to say such hurtful things. How could offering safe, professional, valued work to someone who deserves it be taking advantage?

It didn’t take long, though, for me to realize what she meant. She didn’t think I was taking advantage of them; she thought I was profiting from them. In Every Language is the first for-profit language service provider to contract members of Kentucky’s refugee population. I won’t go so far as to say that I was Kentucky’s first social entrepreneur, but I was definitely the first one she had ever met.

It’s been a weary road since then. Both I and In Every Language have had to prove ourselves over and over. The company will be five this August and I’m still trying to explain what social entrepreneurship is and why it’s important.

We’ve all heard of the bottom line, but many social enterprises have a triple bottom line. In the traditional model, for-profit companies focused on, well, profit. Then the double bottom line came around: people and profits. As our society rips itself apart with war and violence, people want healing. They want more. They are coming to expect both an economic and a social return on their money. As a global society, we no longer want to make only money; we want to make money and a difference.

But things are changing again. Just as the double bottom line was starting to catch on, we now face a triple one: people, profit, and planet. According to Bill Lockhart, author of Wal-Smart: What It Really Takes to Profit in a Wal-mart World, the for-profit world’s economic sustainability allows both social and environmental change to occur. And this makes sense. You may have the winning ticket to improving your world, but if you can’t afford to get to the store and cash it, those winnings are never going to help a soul.

I’m calling this blog “Translation’s Triple Line,” when really and truly, I’ve written more about that double line I mentioned and how I’ve staked myself out as a social entrepreneur. But I did say things were getting ready to change again. As soon as we’ve finally gotten people onto this people + profits idea, we’re going to start focusing on the planet, too. In Every Language is getting ready to move to the triple bottom line.

While the “people” side of translation is inherently clear, the “planet” side is going to take a little work. I recently attended Sustainable Brands, a conference for marketers of sustainable companies looking to learn how to better convey this idea of a triple bottom line to their customers. I have to admit, some people I met wondered why I was there. LSP’s don’t manufacture anything; the only thing we really have to recycle around here are the employees’ water cups, and in our case, we don’t even do that. We use reusable glasses instead. When people think sustainable industry, you’ve gotta admit, the first thing they think is not translation.

The key, though, is that we all have to be responsible. Language Line Services recently came out with an environmental responsibility report of sorts, discussing its green initiatives. And while the document was pretty much 20 pdf pages full of greenwashing, at least folks there are trying and aware.

Here at In Every Language, we’ve abandoned our downtown office and are going virtual in order to become both commute and paper-free. We’re giving preferential treatment to interpreters who take public transit to appointments instead of driving. We’re vetting the sustainability of any product vendor before use them. We’re also taking on more environmentally-focused translation projects, such as green marketing and packaging, CSR reports, and groundwater testing, and have pledged not to work with clients who are socially irresponsible. We’re doing what we can when we can—just like we’ve been doing for the past five years.

We’re not perfect. No company or person is. Like the double bottom line before, this idea may take a while for some people to catch on. But we do have a clear head on our shoulders and a clear goal of where we want to be. We’re determined. And we’re not going to take a single bottom line for an answer.

Translating Words, Transforming Lives

I promised to discuss Sustainable Brands more when I returned from the conference, and I will, but what I want to impart here in this blog is that WE ARE ALL RESPONSIBLE. No one can change our world or fix our planet but us. We all are powerful, we all can make a difference.

The difference we've chosen to make here at In Every Language is two-fold. That's why we're calling it Translation Plus Two.

I could write about it, and I'm sure in future blogs, I will, but for now, I simply want to introduce the idea that translation can be more and do more. (See how in the video I edited below.)

Translation has the power to change the world, just like you and I do. We can simply translate words or we can translate words AND transform lives. It's your decision when you choose a translation company to do only one, or both.

Top Tweeters at Sustainable Brands

I'll blog more on the event and its impact on the translation industry later, but just to bring my followers up to speed as I prepare to board my flight home: this week I have been in Monterey, CA for the Sustainable Brands conference--the place where Fortune 500 and other leading companies come together to discuss our nation's need for environmentally and socially responsible business, as well as how to market CSR.

I just found out that In Every Language has been named one of the top 85 Tweeters from the event. To add perspective, 700 people attended from countries all around the world.

You can learn more about the conference and check out who else made the list at http://greeneconomypost.com/whos-tweeting-sustainable-brands-10-check-out-our-list-10434.htm .

And thanks Green Economy Post! We appreciate the recognition!

Rand Paul, Racism, & Professional Interpreters

Full disclaimer: I’m proud to be a Kentuckian.

No matter which state you’re from, though, you’d have to be living under a rock, far far away from CNN to not have heard about US Senate hopeful Rand Paul’s unfortunate remarks.  In an effort to share his beliefs on government’s role (or lack thereof) in business, he unfortunately side-stepped into a nasty civil rights debacle.  What the man actually said is beside the point; what’s he’s been accused of saying is that the US government had no right to force businesses’ hand in repealing Jim Crow.  Whether those were his exact words or not, the national media rush resulting puts Kentucky forth as the Land of Johnny Redneck, while we scramble as a state to protest the embarrassment Mr Paul has caused.

From recent efforts to un-redneckify this image, something good has come forth: State Senate Resolution 10SS SR31.  Proposed by Senator Gerald Neal (D-33), the four page resolution reaffirms Kentucky’s belief in and adherence to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a state.  With language that is forthright, moving, and as passionate as you can get and still call it government, Senator Neal invokes the battle long-fought in our country for civil rights.  The resolution calls the Civil Rights Act “a statement of a core American value.”  Throughout the resolution, the message is clear: civil rights = good, prejudice = bad.  But civil rights for whom?

As the owner of a translating and interpreting company, I see a new discrimination when I look across the Bluegrass State.  Yes, racial discrimination still exists.  I may have personally been born post-Jim Crow, but even I have seen restaurants with separate doors and dining rooms for whites and blacks, still divided by the community in a jus au sanguine kind of way.  Laws mean nothing if they are neither followed nor enforced.  Racism is still an unfortunate reality in the South.  But where racism is slowly starting to disappear, a new form of discrimination is coming forth: prejudice based on national origin.

As a nation, we have Title VI, the portion of the Civil Rights Act that prohibits prejudice on national origin and which requires, thanks to a back-up executive order from President Clinton, that any agency receiving federal funding provide equal language access under the law.  (For you lay people out there, that means, in part, translating and interpreting.)  But, again, as we learned with laws, they must be either followed or enforced to take meaning.  The 1960’s seems like a long time ago to some.  The issues we faced with immigration then were different than the issues we face now.

That’s why I was so proud to see Senator Neal’s resolution.  Whether he intended it or not, whether the other senators who unanimously voted for it were aware or not, we now have new legislation in Kentucky that says Kentucky is a welcoming state to immigrants.  It’s right there, in the final paragraphs (for a full copy, visit http://www.lrc.ky.gov/record/10SS/SR31.htm):

        WHEREAS, if the United States is to remain the welcoming country for persons from all locations, regardless of race, color, religion and ethnicity, enshrined by the Statue of Liberty, the welcoming of persons from all nations, and the "melting pot" for persons coming to the United States, the core values must continue to be protected; and

        WHEREAS, the Senate of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky finds and declares that any ideology, philosophy, or position which does not recognize these core American values is repugnant to the citizenry of the United States and to the advances made since the United States declared itself independent of Great Britain in 1776, and to the guarantees of equal protection, enshrined in the amendments to the Constitution of the United States and is hereby rejected;

NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it resolved by the Senate of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky:
Section 1.   The Senate of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky finds discrimination in any form to be inconsistent with American values and stands firmly behind the principles of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Kentucky Civil Rights Act of 1966.

Section 2.   The Senate of the General Assembly rejects any attempt to retreat from the guarantees provided by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Kentucky Civil Rights Act of 1966, and urges all residents of the Commonwealth to do likewise.

Maybe I’m stretching for it.  But did you see?  We are “a welcoming country [and] the welcoming of persons from all nations, and the ‘melting pot’ for persons coming to the United States…must continue to be protected… [A]ny ideology, philosophy, or position which does not recognize these core American values is repugnant to the citizenry of the United States.”  

I don’t know about you, but English-only political positions and other anti-translation efforts definitely seem unwelcoming to me.  To me, there is nothing more repugnant than a non-English speaking person being denied quality health care because they do not speak English.  There is nothing more repugnant than doctors who don’t care if their patient understands, who aren’t willing to invest the time it takes to open the phone book and call a qualified interpreting provider.  There is nothing more repugnant than a state Medicare system that turns down federal funding to reimburse interpreting costs.  There is nothing more repugnant than an abortion clinic administering abortions to non-English speaking women without first explaining the procedure in their language.  There is nothing more repugnant than a government that bars non-English speaking people from taking a driver’s license test, and in so doing, keeps these same people from getting to work or English lessons.  There is nothing more repugnant than school systems that do not understand the importance of having an interpreter explain a child’s progress to his parents.  There is nothing more repugnant than these things, yet they and many others continue to be in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.

It is my hope—no, it is my challenge—to Senator Neal and others that 10SS SR31 will take teeth and bite, that it will enact change, that it will not stop at the whites-only door, but rather march right into both dining rooms and say that ending discrimination means ending discrimination, no matter who is being discriminated against.

I am challenging you to be better, Kentucky.  I am challenging you to keep me proud.  I know that it’s in you.

Named to ALC Leadership Council

It's official!

Last week at the Association of Language Companies (ALC) annual conference, I was named to their national leadership council. For those of you who might not know, the ALC is a national trade association representing businesses that provide translation, interpretation, localization, and language training services.

I'm honored because only 14 language industry leaders nationwide were named to this council, which is appointed by the association's president. The position lasts for two years.

Thanks, ALC!

Where the Disconnect Is Not

"We are building a bridge." This is the phrase I heard over and over again at the US Conference on African Immigrant Health (USCAIH) this week.

Last week, I blogged on the disconnect. I wrote about how our nation’s leaders were unaware of language’s vital role in healing, how people don’t heal if they don’t understand, how interpreting in of itself is a profession with ethics and rules. The disconnect is there.

But here, with community leaders from all throughout the African Diaspora, the disconnect is not. Instead, there is a concerted effort to bring together aspects of all industries that help people--especially Africans--heal.

I arrived here Wednesday. Our first event was a meet and greet where attendees stood and introduced themselves, explaining what their interest was in African health and what they expected to get from the conference. I identified myself as Terena Bell with In Every Language, said I was here to represent the medical interpreting industry, that I had seen this disconnect and I was here to learn how we could fix it. When I sat down, almost every person in the room said “thank you” and some even clapped. An Ethiopian man walked up to me and instantly started talking about the difficulty of getting trained interpreters in Minneapolis, the need for continued training for those entering the profession. A man from Ghana stood up in front of everyone and talked about how interpreters for Muslim patients need to be culturally aware of faith’s role in healing—and better paid. At Harvard, people wondered why I was even there, had never thought of language as a health-related issue. Here, at the USCAIH, attendees were willing to join with the language industry in its fight.

I am not writing this to compare one conference to the next, or the Alliance for Health in the African Diaspora (the conference organizers) to Harvard. What Harvard does not know is clearly to Harvard’s loss. But, just as I had to point out where the disconnect is, I have to point out where the disconnect is not.

So what makes the difference? Why were these two audiences so different?

I have long said that there are two types of doctors in the world: those who want to make sure their patients understand and those who do not. Perhaps there are similarly two types of people: those who want to help people understand and those who do not. I am not calling the other group cold or cruel. But there are people in this world whose drive and desire to improve their world is innate, unavoidable, a moving, liquid force. I saw that this week in the faces of everyone here. Representatives from all across the African diaspora came together to share, to commune, to--as they put it--build a bridge. They, too, talked about breaking down silos, but they took the time to find out what those silos held.

Friday, I presented on language access for African LEP's. Every single person who heard about my topic said thank you, whether they attended my session or not. Dozens of people said, “We need that.” Most had interpreter stories of their own. A keynote on African Americans living with HIV even had a medical interpreter working from French to English. There is clearly no disconnect here.

But there is a need. They need us. And we need them. After what happened at Harvard, and after the warm reception I received here, I completely changed my presentation. It had initially been on where to get materials, how to get professional translation when materials weren’t there already. But meeting these people and learning more about how active they want to be in every area impacting African American health, I changed it.

There are three factors in LEP patient healing: the patient, the provider, and the language professional. All three must be on top of their game for healing to happen. Like our government, they must be in checks and balances with one another—they must all play their role, but they must also listen. For the patient, I discussed Title VI and HIPAA, the need to know you have a right to a professional, medical interpreter. For the provider, I discussed the need for cross-cultural training in universities and from hospital associations as CME’s. For the language professional, I said we must listen. We must listen to the patient and the provider to learn their need before we can address it. I told the people there that we could not do it without them, that if we as a language profession are wrong, then they must make us stop and listen.

And that’s the difference. As a language industry, we have been speaking, but at Harvard, no one had yet listened. I still believe what I wrote and I stand beside my words. But I also feel cool water flowing from around the rock. We must continue client education, but we must also allow our clients to educate us, listening to each other. If we are truly to build a bridge, we must meet each other in the river with our tools.

Is Our Industry Disconnected from Clients?

There is a disconnect--a divide. The difference between what we know and what our clients know is vast and the gulf that lies between us is insurmountable alone.

This is how I felt walking away from the Harvard Social Enterprise Conference. Held February 28th, its global health track featured leaders from international pharmaceutical companies, the Pentagon, the Obama administration--even George W’s daughter sat a panel under her Global Health Corps role. These, supposedly, were the world’s greatest minds on global health and social enterprise, with Harvard‘s reputation fully stacked behind them. But when it came to language services, they didn‘t know jack.

Here’s what made me realize this:

I was sitting in the back row listening to a panel made up of Barbara Bush, the director of the International Health Specialist Program for the Pentagon (Lt Col Mylene Huynh), Merck’s director of global affairs (Kris Natarajan), Management Services for Health‘s CEO (Jono Quick), and two professors from the Harvard School of Public Health (Drs Jessica Cohen and Till Barnighausen). The topic was “Breaking the Silos: Collaborations That Impact Complex Global Health Issues.” According to the program summary, the session’s goal was to bring together people and information from different fields, all with the goal of improving global health.

When it came time for Q&A, I raised my hand. “People don’t heal if they don’t understand,” I said. “The rest of the world does not speak English.” I then asked what we could do as a language industry to help connect with the global health one.

There was a long pause. Too long. Then Lt Col Huynh from the Pentagon spoke. Bilinguals and heritage speakers need to learn medical terminology. Sure, I thought, that’s a given. The military, she claimed, does not have systems in place to teach medical linguists medical language terms. Okay. Fair enough. She’s acknowledged their need and is speaking out. That, we can address; lessons, we can do.

But then Harvard’s Dr Barnighausen spoke up. And his response made me wonder what I’ve been doing with the last four years of my life, what our industry has been doing the last ten. He told a story about the one time he had worked with a “translator.” He asked the “translator” to ask the patient if his stomach hurt. The “translator” and the patient had a long back and forth conversation before the “translator” said, “No.” Dr Barnighausen’s reaction was to stop working with translators (which is good, as he needs interpreters instead) because “they’re all like that.”

I wanted to weep. I sincerely and utterly wanted to weep. The moderator went on to the next question while I sat there in shock. The camera Harvard was using to record it all (Harvard, conveniently enough, was unable to locate the video upon request) panned away from me and back toward the panel as they continued, but I didn‘t hear a word. I was too in shock. This “expert,” this Dr Barnighausen, wasn’t an expert on language‘s crucial role in health care at all.

This was Harvard. These people were supposed to know what they were doing.

After the session, I ran to the front to try and catch Dr Barnighausen. If, for some reason, our entire industry, the multiple associations that we have, the whole of both certification movements, had not been able to reach him, I would. But I didn‘t. The moderator carted him away before we had the chance to talk. I did get to speak with Lt Col Huynh, though. I told her how glad I was she articulated her answer so clearly, how much I appreciated the information. I told her how much Dr Barnighausen’s remarks had pained me, then what she said pained me even more. “But he’s right. They’re all like that.”

I immediately started gushing about the National Council on Interpreting in Health Care, its code of ethics, the certification for medical interpreters expected this fall. “You mean there are ethics?” she said, “This is a profession?”

This woman works for the Pentagon. She is in charge of our entire military’s medical efforts.

Clearly, there is a disconnect. It is wide and vast and sprawling.

As a language industry we are working hard--harder than ever before--to develop interpreting as a profession. We have more trade associations than ever before, more conferences than in years past, more training opportunities than before. But do they help? And, if so, whom?

There is a disconnect. When representatives of our own government, professors at the country’s purported top school--when our nation’s leaders have never heard of us--when they stand aghast at the sheer principle of our having ethics--when they think we’re all bilingual quacks who summarize--what are we doing wrong? Who are our efforts for?

Conference after conference, session after session, we talk, but to each other. We must talk to the client. We must talk to those who need to listen. Instead of teaching Bridging the Gap, we should be bridging the gap between us and our clients.

But how? In the past, this has fallen on the freelancer, on the LSP, on the person selling the services. That’s why we call it client education. But the LSP can not tackle this great gap by itself. The language industry is being squeezed. Rates are falling, client demands are going up. If the LSP refocuses its effort to focus on client education, the burning of resources will mean there is no LSP left. We need our associations to help us. Clients do not always believe freelancers or LSP’s because they assume we have something to sell. But if the associations would work together to sell clients on our industry, there’s no telling who or how many people we could help.

We must close the disconnect. We must stop thinking intrinsically and think externally. Educational PSA’s on YouTube, an NCIHC booth at global health conferences. Our associations must market this industry just as we LSP’s market our services. There should be no excuse for our nation’s leaders to know so little. Again, there should be no excuse for our nation’s leaders to know so little!

Where are we going wrong? How can we take this talking together and make it working together to educate the client? How do we bridge the disconnect?