UBC student’s project translates COVID-19 information to world’s Indigenous languages

A UBC medical student has joined forces with colleagues in Toronto and the U.S. to help ensure Indigenous people around the world can access COVID-19 information in their own languages.

The project, dubbed Translations 4 Our Nations, involves translation of up-to-date public health information about the virus into more than 40 Indigenous languages around the world, with the help of 120 Indigenous translators.

The project came together UBC’s Sukhmeet Singh Sachal connected online with Harvard Medical’s Victor Carmen and public health graduate students Sterling Stutz and Thilaxcy Yohatasan at the University of Toronto.

The initiative came about amid concerns that the pandemic was disproportionately affecting the world’s Indigenous populations.

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“You’ve got to wonder, why is that happening? A lot of times we know there is systemic barriers in place, there’s inequities in the health-care system that are causing these issues in a lot of indigenous communities,” Sachal told Global News.

“Language is one that is so important that I think is often overlooked.”

It’s not the first initiative Sukhmeet Singh Sachal has worked on to get culturally relevant information about the virus into people’s hands.

He’s also spearheaded a project built around getting COVID-19 information to the Lower Mainland’s South Asian population, through the translation of health messaging.

Both initiatives are focused on the core public health messages best positioned to slow the spread of COVID-19: masks, social distancing and hand hygiene.

Carmen, who is from the Dakota and Yaqui nations, said when it comes to Indigenous peoples, public health messaging often overlooks the day to day reality on the ground.

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“For instance, hand washing,” he said. “A lot of Indigenous communities didn’t have access to clean water, so integrating these realities that Indigenous communities were facing into the COVID-19 information was incredibly important.”

The information can be downloaded virtually, or printed out and turned into posters.

Sachal and the team are still recruiting translators and adding languages, and are planning to include translated information about vaccines.

With files from Linda Aylesworth