If you’re working for an NGO, your job may be challenging and difficult at times. But if you’re working for an NGO in a foreign country, your position may seem impossible at times. Attending a localization event or conference in your area can teach you methods of getting around a language barrier and make your organization more efficient in its mission and more effective in achieving the goals of the organization.
Whether you’re working for a charitable organization with many resources, or a small organization with limited funding, the language barrier in the country you’re stationed in is detrimental to your ability to function effectively.
Even if you’ve spent time learning the language well enough to communicate with others in the local community, your job may require you to issue press releases and other communications within the local community.
You may have to write public service messages, marketing materials, and explanations of your NGO’s services in the local language, tasks for which your basic skills in the local language have not prepared you.Â
Explore the Services of Localization
But by attending localization events and conferences in your region of the world, you’ll get the chance to meet with agencies and individuals who can meet your NGO’s needs. The localization industry specializes in solving the translation problems that you encounter daily within the scope of your job.Â
The people working within the localization industry provide translation services that don’t just translate your content word-for-word. They adapt your message to phrase it in a way that has meaning to people living in a different culture and speaking a different language.
This adaption of your message is an essential service. It can mean the difference between an NGO that utterly fails in its mission, and an NGO that is accepted into the community. Cultural differences must be addressed for your message to have any hope of acceptance.Â
By exploring the different services provided by the localization industry, you may find a service that will make your NGO’s purpose and goals readily attainable.Â
Effective communication needs to be deeper than just translation. It needs to appeal to a local community from a local perspective as well. Localization professionals are experts at providing translation services for messages that can be easily understood by their target audience. Â
Localization Makes an NGOs Mission AttainableÂ
Your NGO’s message and communications need to feature a level of transparency and diplomacy that will appeal to your local audience, particularly when your NGO is providing charitable services. It takes time to build trust. It takes even more time to build trust between people of different cultures and ways of speaking and living. The localization industry provides a bridge between people of different languages and cultures.Â
Attending a localization conference or event in your part of the world can introduce you to people who are specialists in building those bridges. They can help you establish the trust you need to complete your job and accomplish your NGO’s goals.Â