Artikel,
Interpreters-in-Aid at Disasters: Community Interpreting in the Process of Disaster Management
The Translator, (2001)
Zusammenfassung
Voluntary interpreting services for foreign Search and Rescue teams at disaster sites remain one of the least institutionalized forms of community interpreting. Yet training and careful planning are required in order to eliminate possible conflicts due to race, culture, religion, language, ethnicity and the like. The success of such interpreting depends on the careful handling of sensitive cross-cultural issues. The earthquakes that devastated part of Turkey in 1999 revealed the need to plan interpreting services within the overall process of disaster management. Here issues are raised concerning the international search and rescue operation guidelines and the code of conduct of the relief interpreters, especially as such questions affect an Interpreter-in-Aid at Disasters (IAD) training project. The ethical framework of IAD, practised by qualified independent voluntary interpreters in order to help save lives in disasters, is purely communicative and situation-oriented. The mutual benefit hypothesis thus works for the voluntary interpreter thanks to the satisfaction of being an indispensable intermediary, helping to rescue the largest number of lives possible via effective and efficient communication, and undertaking full responsibility for the initiatives required.
