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May 18
Saturday
Shambhala News Service
Introducing Multilingual Services

Carolyn Mandelker and Sophie LegerShambhala to provide multilingual services 

Carolyn Mandelker, the Executive Director of Shambhala, and Christoph Schonherr, the Kalapa Envoy to Europe, are creating two new positions to help make the Shambhala mandala more multilingual.

Ms Sophie Leger has been appointed Director of Multilingual Development. She will serve on the Kalapa Executive that provides the central services to the mandala, thus ensuring that developing a multilingual approach is integrated into the central operations of Shambhala. Last year Sophie, former Director of the Montreal Shambhala Centre, conducted an extensive survey that laid out all the translation needs, challenges and aspirations reported by our local translations committees throughout Shambhala. Sophie will serve as a part-time volunteer.

“There will be a further position appointed in Europe, The International Translation Coordinator. This will be a position under the umbrella of Shambhala Europe, and there will be a close cooperation between those two new positions.”

“These positions are important — both in order to service our increasingly multilingual mandala, and also to support further growth in areas where a wider range of languages are spoken,” say Carolyn Mandelker and Christoph Schonherr in a recent letter to all translators. “More is needed than simply getting more translators and coordinating and supporting their work better. There has to be someone at the very centre of the international organization acting as a voice for multilingualism in all our strategizing and planning.”

The Director of Multilingual Development will be responsible for:

  • Promoting the view and supporting the development of Multilingual Shambhala.
  • Raising the level of awareness in North America about the multilingual nature of our global organization.
  • Facilitating communication and serving as advocate for translators and for non-Anglophone communities within the governing structure.
  • Clarifying the organizational structure of the translation mandala.
  • Improving the overall planning and coordination of multilingual events and publications within our global organization.
  • Providing a path of training for translators.
  • Increasing support for translators by organizing conferences and translators’ retreats, by developing some form of financial assistance and by making available better online tools for individual translators and Translation Committees
  • Providing guidance and support for the publication of translated material

The International Translation Coordinator will be responsible for:

  • Receiving all translation requests, dispatching them to appropriate translators, following up on the translation progress, and, once translations are completed, sending them to the appropriate audiences
  • Serving as liaison between translators and Director of Multilingual Development
  • Creating and updating a list of translators available, their current workload and level of translation authorization.
  • Maintaining an online document repository
  • Magnetizing new translators
  • Implementing policies/structures provided by Director of Multilingual Development
  • Improving working conditions for interpretation at major programs
  • Providing guidelines to our existing Shambhala teachers on how to work with interpreters

Click here to view a short video of Carolyn Mandelker introducing Sophie Leger as new Director of Multilingual Development.

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3 responses to “ Introducing Multilingual Services ”
  1. Hi all, I’d be interested to contribute. I’ve done a lot of dharma translation, mainly in the commercial publishing line for the German Arbor Verlag. For instance, I’ve done Pema’s “No time to lose” oder Chögyam Trungpa’s “The Sanity we’re born with” for Arbor. I’ve also worked regularly as an interpreter for talks.
    Regards,
    Mike

  2. I am so very happy to hear we are becoming multi-lingual. How wonderful indeed!

  3. འཆི་མེད་སྒྲོམ (Ashley)
    May 19, 2013
    Reply

    A great idea. I’d be interested in offering my services as an ASL (sign language) interpreter (not only within the Shambhala mandala but at other SF Bay Area Dharma centers as well) if I could get a sponsor to continue my education for it. Each semester of classes costs approximately $300 (not including materials and travel expenses). I don’t think it would require many semesters (maybe just one) to be able to offer this because many of the words used in Mahayana/Vajrayana/Dzogchen/Mahamudra level dharma teachings do not have commonly accepted ASL “signs” for them yet. These eventually come from within the deaf community once a tipping point of common understanding is thought to be reached. I’d be interested in hearing from others with experience in this area. I’m also interested in (Dharma, not colloquial) Tibetan to English oral interpretation but the schools I’ve seen for that are overseas and run into the thousands. I have the interest and ability, the body, the internal winds, and the time to offer – just not the budget right now. :)


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