Looking For Interpreters


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The European Social Forum (ESF) is looking for interpreters so that hundred of organizations and tens of thousand of people can participate fully, work together, listen to each other and understand each other. Languages are central; interpreters therefore will play a major role. Without their expertise, “another world is possible” is meaningless.

The ESF It will take place in Florence from November 6th to November 10th. The ESF will include plenary sessions in which thousands of people will participate (mornings and evenings) and 50 simultaneous seminaries (one hundreds of persons will participate in each) which will be organized in the beginning of the afternoon (not to mention hundreds of simultaneous workshops organized in the second part of the afternoon). The ESF will also be a chance for social movements to gather together, organize meetings and plan how to work together. After the ESF ends (Saturday night) a general meeting of all the social movements will take place Sunday morning. The ESF is meeting to elaborate new forms of democracy and define new citizen’s rights. Its political aims are defined in its program, which is centered around three main themes: liberalism, war and democracy. These three themes will be developed in conferences, seminars, workshops, thematic meetings, testimonies, dialogues, discussions between the movements. Florence will be a humongous public space for debates, encounters, exchanges, common initiatives, a huge laboratory for alternative proposals. We will prepare campaigns, social struggles, initiatives and actions for the year to come. We will share different languages and different practices: popular participation, culture, music, theater, political discussions, active non-violence, civil and social direct actions, active citizenship, volunteering, network practices and so on. Why volunteer interpreters? All the European social movements helping to the built the ESF think important to call on people whose are similar to our own ideas and commitment. Interpreting is not only a “service” but rather allows people to further their involvement with us and participate more directly in building of another Europe using their language expertise. Volunteer nore is synonymous with low quality of work. We think on the contrary that simultaneous translations can be at least as good as done by paid interpreters. This quality of work comes both from technical linguistic expertise and from those interests in the topics and issues. How will it work? There are two existing models: the European Union model and United Nation model. In the EU model all languages can be translated from and into. In the UN model "vehicle languages" allow translations into number of other languages. We will use the UN model. Among the UN languages we have chosen three "vehicle languages": English, French and Spanish. This means pragmatically that persons speaking Italian will be translated in one of the three vehicle languages. This first translation will allow translations in other languages to be made. The ESF official languages are English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Russian, Spanish and one language for the South part of the Mediterranean area.

Thank you for circulating this appeal as widely as possible in your country and / or in your network.

The forms for commitment you will find at http://www.dsf-gsf.org/material/form.doc for MSWord or http://www.dsf-gsf.org/material/form.rtf for others.

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