Languages at the 2006 Bamako WSF

Without yet having taken into account all of the volunteers who will come forward and join us directly in Bamako during the two or three days of orientation that we will be organizing before the Forum, we are already in a position to guarantee that teams and equipment will be available to support interpretation in the following languages:

* Working languages (languages that the audience will be listening to in the different halls and that the speakers will be able to use since simultaneous interpretation will be available) in alphabetical order: Arabic, English, French, Kiswahili, Spanish, Wolof, with possibilities in Bambara, Creole, Fulani, Mandinka, Portuguese, and Soninke.

The presence of these languages will be made possible through the mobilisation effort and hard work of the Social African Forum in Dakar, the WSF06 Organising Committee in Bamako, the Maghrebian Social Forum in Casablanca, the WSF07 Organising Committee in Nairobi, and of course the Babels international network of volunteers.

Interpretation will be available to everyone in some halls of the Bamako WSF06 thanks to the mobilisation effort of the volunteers of the ALIS network and the support of the Athens ESF06 Organising Committee and the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind (FPH).

A dozen halls at the same time will be equipped with two systems that will support the work of the team of volunteer interpreters: an FM radio-based system (bring your own radio set(s) with earphone(s) to directly tune in to the translated speeches), and a stand-alone wired system that will let small groups of people speaking one language to gather around an interpreter.

Before being a service, interpretation is a political act that builds on and highlights indispensable international collaboration and contribution between individuals. The interpreters, technical experts and activists that mobilise for a Social Forum have chosen to donate their skills to contribute to the emergence of other possible worlds jointly with the speakers and audiences at the various events of the Forum.

Bamako WSF06:
Information: http://www.fsmmali.org/
Babels
Contact: bamako06 @ babels.org