Newsletter - Community
Chernobyl Kids Coming to Boston
Don DePalma, Common Sense Advisory
If you can translate from English to Russian, the Chernobyl Children Project in Massachusetts needs your help. Each year the Project (www.ccpusa.org) brings 130 children from the Chernobyl area to greater Boston for a month of medical care and a change of pace.
While in Massachusetts and nearby New Hampshire, these kids receive world-class medical attention – all of it donated – for a variety of illnesses and chronic conditions caused by living in the parts of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine affected by the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster in Chernobyl, Ukraine.
Boston-area hospitals, physicians, dentists, technicians, and eye care professionals have volunteered their time and resources. The Project has also attracted the attention of large corporate sponsors who enable much of the care to take place. Hundreds of families have given time and space for the kids to stay. The Chernobyl Children Project is run by a non-profit organization that coordinates this annual summertime effort.
- Timeline. Starting in late June and continuing through the month of July, the project needs volunteers who can translate from English into Russian. Typically, the hospitals and medical professionals produce five to ten pages of medical and lab reports for each kid. You can see examples of these documents at http://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/en/faqs_03.htm under the question “What do the documents look like?”
- Commitment. What we have done in the past is organize a group of pro bono translators who each commit to translating as many sets of records as they have time. Typically, translators have translated documents for one to three kids – anywhere from five to 30 pages. Any help is valued.
- Process. Each volunteer will receive the documents via e-mail. ScanSoft of Peabody, MA has contributed document management and conversion software to help collect and digitize the paper documents generated by the hospitals and doctors. SDL has donated SDLTermBase Online to manage English-Russian medical terminology. The Chernobyl Children Project will use these tools to send electronic copies of these documents via e-mail, manage the workflow, collect translations, and manage the translation process. We have also been talking with some language resource suppliers to provide English-Russian medical and oncological glossaries. Please let us know if your company can help.
If you live in the Boston area, you can help in other ways. The Project needs interpreters who can accompany the kids on visits to doctors, be available in case a family cannot communicate with their Russian-speaking visitors, or help out on the many excursions and other events.
If you’re interested, please contact me at don@commonsenseadvisory.com or +1.978.256.7621.
Don DePalma is president of Common Sense Advisory, a research and consulting firm committed to improving the quality of international business and the efficiency of the online and offline operations that support it. He has been writing and speaking about domestic ethnic markets since the late 1990s. You can reach him at don@commonsenseadvisory.com or read more about this research at www.commonsenseadvisory.com/en/research/research.htm.