Translating COVID messages vital for Indigenous health

Nicholas Evans, Outreach

COVID-19 has underlined the urgent need for a coordinated national framework of interpreters and translation services for Australia's Indigenous languages, say leading experts. 

Indigenous community members, academics and language researchers have raced to translate crucial COVID-19 health messaging into 29 Australian Indigenous languages with a further 50 to 100 languages still to go.  

To help, the Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (CoEDL) based at The Australian National University (ANU) has established a resource and information clearing house for translated materials.  

Director of CoEDL, Professor Nicholas Evans said getting correct messages to many Indigenous communities has been an enormous undertaking.  

"While the health messages are absolutely critical, they also have to be culturally appropriate and delivered by the right people," he said. 

The clearing house for translated materials and resources has been managed, maintained and made accessible by the voluntary work of CoEDL and ANU affiliates Ruth Singer and Mahesh Radhakrishnan.  

The resources are now online.  

Visual Collection of resources in Indigenous languages: https://covid-19-indigenous-languages-translations.dropmark.com/793396 

Visual Collection of resources in English aimed at Indigenous communities in remote areas: https://covid-19-indigenous-languages-translations.dropmark.com/793398 

Read the full story here

ANU Media contact: Jane Faure-Brac