Kibaku (Chibok) Community Team Leader at Translators without Borders (TWB)

Location: Maiduguri, Borno
Hours: Part-time (50%)
Reporting to: Program Manager
Travel: some travel to field locations in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states
Contract length: until the end of March 2019, with the possibility of extension/ national position  

Background
TWB conducted an initial assessment of language support needs in the humanitarian response in north-east Nigeria in July 2017. This found very significant levels of need: in a context where people affected by the conflict and food crisis speak dozens of first languages, humanitarian communication is overwhelmingly in English and Hausa. Organizations lack basic information about the languages spoken and understood by affected people, and struggle to hire either language professionals or national staff and volunteers with the right language skills. Humanitarian staff voiced fears for the impact this could have on the accuracy of needs assessments, the effectiveness of program design, accountability, and conflict sensitivity. So far TWB has developed a protection, mental health and psychosocial support and camp coordination and camp management glossary apps, conducted comprehension testing with IDPs, enumerators, and field staff, worked with partners on collecting and mapping language data, carried out trainings on the basics of interpreting and is piloting a multilingual feedback mechanism.

There is still much to do to fully understand how language barriers affect data collection, two way communication between crisis affected people and humanitarian agencies, and access to services. The research planned over the coming months includes better understanding the impact of language on service accessibility, the effectiveness and limitations of multi-lingual audio messaging, and the relevance of language in enabling crisis affected people to express their needs.

The Role

• The Kibaku Community Team Leader will be responsible for delivering high-quality Kibaku language translation, terminology development, and training services to humanitarian organizations in north-east Nigeria and will provide research, administrative and logistical support to other TWB activities as needed.
• The postholder will lead on recruiting, capacity building, and managing a community of translators in Kibaku, from among qualified translators and suitably skilled bilinguals in Nigeria and the wider region. The role will identify capacity building needs and coordinate training and support measures to respond to them.

Responsibilities

• Recruitment and management of the Kibaku language team
• Research and report on the existing capacity of professional language service providers (LSPs) for Kibaku in north-eastern Nigeria, identifying their training and support needs.
• Recruit a team of qualified translators and suitably skilled bilinguals for training and recruitment into a TWB community of translators (posting vacancies, shortlisting, interviewing, reaching out to universities, LSPs, community groups).
• Test Kibaku applicant translators to ensure high-quality applicants are selected.
• Train and coach new Kibaku translators to improve their skills and ensure they know how to use TWB translation platforms and glossaries.
• Manage and support the Kibaku language pool of translators to encourage exchanges of experience, sharing of learning, mutual support and a sense of belonging to a TWB team
• Manage the volunteer and translator incentive program.
• Management of translation and language services in Kibaku
• Delivers high quality and timely translations to and from Kibaku, transcription and audio recordings in Kibaku language.
• Liaise between partner organizations, Kibaku translators and TWB’s wider translation team to take full responsibility for delivering high-quality translations on time.
• Lead for Kibaku in the provision of multilingual terminology support to humanitarian partner organizations, including terminology harvesting, collaborative development of sectoral terminology in relevant languages, and field testing.
• Support TWB in the implementation of field activities, including support to multilingual feedback mechanisms and communication with communities, support to language-sensitive rapid response, comprehension studies, needs assessments and wider research on language.
• Coordinate and co-facilitate training activities, including liaising with partner organizations on needs, timings and venue; identifying suitable trainers with the right skills and languages; collecting evaluation forms; and maintaining a register of trained Kibaku translators and interpreters.
• Make sure that alternative workflows are in place and available to members of the Kibaku translator pool who cannot access and/or use TWB’s web-based translation platform.
• Research, contribute to and/or write language factsheets guides, dos and don’ts, etc.
• Participate in research and monitoring, evaluation and learning activities.
• Test interpreters to assess language competency levels.
• Identify needs for new translation technology tools and assist with the development and roll-out of new tools as they emerge (including online testing modules and audio translation).
• Support a peer network of interpreters and translators in north-east Nigeria.

Other activities:

• Provide administrative and logistical support to TWB’s activities in Nigeria as needed.
• Support TWB in scaling up operations in Nigeria, particularly with recruiting other language team leaders.
• Attend occasional meetings of humanitarian organizations to relay TWB messaging and report on discussions or decisions.
• Produce regular reports.
• Any other duty as required.

Qualifications

• Professional translation or interpreting qualifications and experience
• Excellent quality written and spoken Kibaku
• Good level of written and spoken English
• Resourcefulness and ability to innovate to find creative solutions
• Integrity and professional verbal and written presentation
• Team player; experience managing volunteers a plus
• Previous experience with non-profit organizations, particularly in development and/or humanitarian action, a plus
• Training experience a plus
• Familiar with office management (financial, logistics) routine is a plus
• experience of Computer Assisted Translation tools
• Track record of working with and managing volunteers and small teams

Requirements

• 1+ year experience in translation or interpretation into Kibaku
• Experience in team work management/facilitation
• Mother tongue Kibaku speaker with superb Kibaku writing skills
• Willingness to travel to insecure locations for work