As part of the efforts made to ensure the proper delivery of information produced by the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI) in all six official languages of the United Nations, UNAI has been working over the past few months with a number of online volunteer translators recruited through the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Online Volunteering service, who have made a valuable contribution to broadening the multilingualism of United Nations public information by making the UNAI website more accessible to Arabic, Chinese, French and Russian speakers. This article was written by one of the translators helping with the UNAI website in French.
My name is Akhenaton Ohoussou
I was born and currently live in Côte d'Ivoire. After high school, I received the Vocational Training Certificate option Marketing and Management and some years later, a Bachelor's degree in English Teaching and a Master's degree in English Linguistics. For a year and a half I worked with an immigration agency here in my home country, being responsible for translation and admissions in partner schools and universities. Since July last year, I have been working as translator and reviser (English-French) with the Association of African Development Finance Institutions.
My volunteering experience with UNAI was born from a strong desire to make myself useful, and UNAI gives me that opportunity by allowing me to contribute to the tremendous work that this initiative is doing worldwide. In my opinion, volunteering is important for several reasons. Namely, it allows to discover another world by making atypical encounters and enjoying life in another way; it helps to improve self-confidence by serving, sharing and communicating with others; and it allows to acquire new skills through the various activities carried out.
I started as an online volunteer translator with other components of the United Nations in November 2017 and with UNAI in particular, I have now more than 3 months. The information to be translated is always provided to me in a simple format, with a reasonable time frame. Furthermore, UNAI always replies promptly and kindly to my concerns. Working with UNAI is a terrific experience and as a result, my commitment with UNAI is growing stronger. Furthermore, this experience has greatly improved my own translation and writing skills, by learning continuously new words and concepts.
Being part of the team of online volunteer translators from around the world has made me more productive in my professional life so this is a privilege for me!