A video translation workshop was organised recently in Lusaka, Zambia, by Access Agriculture to facilitate and build capacity of 12 local media practitioners and NGO representatives in translating video scripts, recording voice-overs and audio editing.
Access Agriculture (www.accessagriculture.org) is a non-profit organisation that promotes agroecology and rural entrepreneurship through capacity development and South-South exchange of quality farmer-to-farmer training videos in international and local languages.
The main objective of the video translation workshop was to train the participants to translate six Access Agriculture videos into two local languages (Bemba and Tonga) during the workshop. The training was conducted by Boyd Kaimbi Chibale, Lead Facilitator, who was supported by Access Agriculture team members: Blessings Flao, Coordinator for Malawi and Southern Africa and Vinjeru Mlenga, Entrepreneur Coach for Southern Africa.
Two other resource persons from Access Agriculture, Phil Malone, Communications Specialist, and Kevin Mutonga, Global Translation Co-ordinator, also provided valuable inputs to the training programme.
The participants included Brian Musonda and Nellia Luhanga from Radio Mano, Brian Namakobo from East Star Radio in Kazungula, Grace Banda and Rodrick Ndhlovu from Chipata Television, Jeff Chanda and Mary Zimba from Radio Maria Yatsani Voice, Mervis Muchiya and Wilfred Masaka from Mazabuka FM, Joyce M. Sinyiza from Self Help Africa Zambia, and Rabecca Mwila and Etinala Tembo from the Participatory Ecological Land Use Management (PELUM)-Zambia.
On the first day, the workshop participants were introduced to audio-visual formats as well as scripting, translation, transcribing and editing, before they started the group activity which involved script review and editing. The second and third days focused on audio recording, sound-proofing techniques and audio editing.
“The translation workshop was timely as I acquired skills on how to translate for videos, for example the ability to summarise long paragraphs but without losing the meaning of the original message, as well as contextualising translations for specific audiences,” said Nellia Luhanga, one of the participants.
Congratulating the participants for accomplishing well their tasks within a very tight schedule, Boyd Chibale, the Lead Facilitator, said, “Although most of the participants were seasoned media practitioners, they learnt a lot about the process of translating for video, and have gained skills that will be useful to them beyond the translation workshop.”
