Latest ELD News
September 2011

Recommended Resource: The Plain English Campaign's 'A-Z of Alternative Words'

This handy resource will help you keep your writing clear and simple, giving hundreds of alternatives to some of the pompous words that can litter our writing.

2012 Schedule Launched

Our schedule for the next 12 months is ready. Countries covered are Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and the Philippines ...read more

Training for Save the Children (South and Central Asia) completed

A training on Developing Project Proposals concluded successfully in August for Save the Children on Project Proposal Writing ...read more

ELD in East Africa, July 2011

Two courses were run in Kenya in July 2011, as well as a customised training for Tearfund UK ... read more

New Distance Training Programmes Launched

Two new Distance Training Programmes have been launched on Case Study Writing and Project Proposal Writing ...

Training for Save the Children (Indonesia) completed

From 16 - 20 May, ELD Director Neil Kendick conducted an in-house training on Project Proposal Writing for the Save the Children Indoesia Country Team in Jakarta ... read more

Training for UNFPA, Sierra Leone completed

From 6 - 10 June, ELD Director Neil Kendick conducted an in-house training on Reporting Skills and Proposal Writing for the UNFPA Country Team in Sierra Leone ... read more

L'Art de Rédiger des Rapports

Our Reporting Skills Tookit is finally available in French / Notre Toolkit sur les techniques de reportage est enfin disponible en français ... read more / lire la suite

See all recent news

CALL FOR TRANSLATORS & EDITORS

Translators

We wish to continue to increase the availability of our toolkits through extending the range of languages offered. Already, our Reporting Skills & Professional Writing Toolkit is available in French, but we want to go further.

However, translating the toolkits is not so simple. While it is possible to make a basic translation now using software, care is needed when:

• Ensuring terminology is translated and explained correctly
• Translating concepts such as those related to language, style and other aspects of the writing skill, which do not always correspond to concepts in the target language

At present we aim to translate all exisiting toolkits into French and Spanish. Other languages may follow, and we will consider your proposals for other langauges.

We are open to both volunteers and professional translators. By volunteers, we mean development professionals who would like to contribute translating parts of some toolkits for us. Benefits for this are helping us to get the new publication out in your language more quickly, as well as receiving a complimentary edition of the final toolkit and a credit on the cover as part of the translating team.

Professional translators should be prepared to offer a time-bound, quality-bound deliverable that, at least, matches the very competitive rates we already pay. You will need to be able to provide us concrete evidence of having delivered similar services to your clients' satisfaction in the past.

If you would like to work with us, email us telling us:

• Your name:
• Your nationality:
• Your relevant qualifications:
• Your experience:
• Your current employment:
• Previous translation experience:
• Which language(s) you are able to translate to:
• Competence level in target language (native speaker / expert):
• Your anticipated rate in USD per word:
  

State also whether you wish to support us as a volunteer or contract with us as a professional translator

Please do not send us any CVs or complete documents, but do send us weblinks to any existing documents available online. Please do NOT contact us as a professional translator if you do not have a professional history - contact us as a volunteer first, and we will develop the relationship from there.

Editors / Proofreaders

At the later stages, we need good editors / proofreaders who can:

• Recognise inconsistencies in translation, especially development terminology
• Have a keen eye for detail

Translators often fail to grasp the importance of using the right terminology consistently and, as a result, translated texts will sometimes use more than one term for the same thing, causing confusion to readers. This is particularly important when describing issues related to Project Cycle Management. While there do exist some reliable resources such as the EU's trilingial lexicon, making sure these are exact is a painstaking task.

Ensuring consistency of other aspects such as capitalisation, punctuation, etc., is also important when producing Toolkits in other languages.

Volunteers who would like to contribute to proofreading parts of some toolkits for us should contact us. Benefits for this are helping us to get the new publication out in your language more quickly, as well as receiving a complimentary edition of the final toolkit and a credit on the cover as part of the editing team.

If you would like to work with us, email us telling us:

• Your name:
• Your nationality:
• Your relevant qualifications:
• Your experience:
• Your current employment:
• Previous editing / proofreading experience:
• Which language(s) you are able to proofread:
• Competence level in target language (native speaker / expert):

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