Lori Thicke is the founder of Translators without Borders, the US-based charity that assists in translating more than two million words, each year, for NGOs such as Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders), Médecins du Monde, Action Against Hunger, Oxfam US and Handicap International.

There has been an overwhelming response from the public regarding the recent drought crisis in the Horn of Africa with the British public alone donating over £42 million. However, my charity organization, Translators without Borders, is warning that lack of access to knowledge in local languages is significantly hampering the administration of medical aid and making it more likely that crises like this one will continue to happen.

It is estimated that there are around 10 million people in the Horn of Africa (Source: UN World Food Programme) desperately in need of medical supplies and food. Funds are needed, but what isn’t on the radar of this crisis is that translation is critical for aid workers in the region to be able to communicate with the people they are helping.

People in situations like this often can’t understand instructions and other important information because they don’t speak English. Aid workers must provide on the spot interpreting, regardless of their language skills. This lessens the effectiveness of relief efforts. Also, by denying people full access to information in areas like health, technology and agricultural best practices, the lack of translation also keeps people from benefiting from global knowledge, which makes them more vulnerable to crises.

Translation is often a forgotten element of humanitarian work, yet it is essential for communication, whether between Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and their international staff, or between the staff and the people they are caring for. Translators without Borders is working with NGOs and ministries of health in the Horn of Africa to help combat this very problem. The first language we are concentrating on is Swahili, the Lingua Franca of Africa that is spoken by around 100 million people in this hard-hit region.

The odds are greatly stacked against Africa, which accounts for around 25% of the world’s disease burden, yet only has 3% of the world’s medical resources. To make matters worse a significant amount of the information that comes with the supplies available is written for the Western world. Situations such as the drought affecting Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia bring these issues into acute focus.

In light of the crisis, our main aim is to bridge the knowledge gap for locals using volunteer translators; if we can contribute to a better informed generation, prevent mothers from dying during childbirth and help people to help themselves, this will alleviate problems in the future.

Translators without Borders helps NGOs in two ways. By calling on our volunteers to carry out the translations necessary for their humanitarian interventions, organisations such as Oxfam can use funds in other areas. Typically operations such as the Horn of Africa would need around $3 million to translate texts into various languages so they can be understood by international staff as well as the local people they are helping, not to mention by the donors who are funding these operations. Our goal is to eliminate as much as we can of these costs because every dollar saved is another dollar that can be spent caring for people in the field.

Translation into local languages is more important than ever as technology today is giving us the means of delivering information into the hands of those who need it most. For the first time in history more Africans have access to a cellphone than have access to shoes or clean water. Vast stores of knowledge can finally reach nearly everyone on this planet. Translation is the final keystone to the bridge we need to build to unlock that knowledge so it can do some good.

Translators without Borders is appealing to the international community for help, either through providing translation skills or by donating money to support our work. Please visit http://translatorswithoutborders.com/ for further information. In addition, we welcome enquiries from NGOs who need translation support.