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 Chinese.
My name is Xuan Gong
It is my great honor to be one of the online volunteer translators for the United Nations Academic Impact (UNAI). I am a postgraduate student at the College of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Fudan University in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. As an English-major student, I am quite interested in translation, since it serves as a bridge that connects people who speak different languages. Through translation, people from different countries and cultural backgrounds can better understand and communicate with each other.
I am also quite passionate about volunteer tasks, especially those directly related to translation and cross-cultural communication. I have been a volunteer in a number of places and events such as the Shanghai Forum, the China-UK High-Level People-to-People Dialogue, Fudan Science and Innovation Forum, among others. Through these experiences, I have improved my personal skills and got chances to learn beyond my major. Also, volunteer experiences always bring me a sense of accomplishment and personal satisfaction.
I learned about UNV Online Volunteers from my university, and successfully applied for this position with UNAI in June this year. The more I get to know UNAI, the more contribution I would like to make for it. I am delighted to learn that UNAI has done a lot of work to align institutions of higher education with the United Nations in supporting and contributing to the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We are now facing several global challenges, including those related to poverty, inequality, environmental degradation, etc.
The significant work that UNAI is doing can actually raise public awareness about those critical issues and many others, and encourage even more universities and colleges to engage in the promotion and achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, so as to make sure we leave a better planet for future generations. I have been with UNAI for about 6 months, and I really enjoy my work. I would like to express my sincere attitude to those working with UNAI, for their patient guidance and prompt feedback.
Through the translation of the articles, I witnessed the development of UNAI as well as its cooperation with different member institutions from all over the world. I am excited to see that more and more institutions of higher education have held various activities and carried out research to advance the SDGs. I hope that my translation can help not only to promote the 2030 Agenda but also to make more Chinese speakers have further information and deeper understanding about what the United Nations does, to work together for a sustainable future for all.