Month: July 2019

Addressing Child Marriage through Professional Translations

Child marriage may be referred to as a marriage of a boy or a girl before the age of 18. According to some organization like UNICEF, the child marriage prevalence percentage of women aged between 20-24 years who were married before the age of 18. 10% of children married before the age of 15 and 40% were married off by the age of 18 by the year 2017, globally a tenth highest absolute number of child brides is 787000 which is blamed mainly on gender inequality and belief that boys are more superior to girls. Related to that, this practice can be blamed on poverty, peer pressure, displacement, family honor, ignorance of ones rights and level of education.

The Irony Keeps On Trending

One may think that child marriage was an ancient practice done by primitive people, statistics prove that it still does exist with highest rankings as a percentage  increasing in Niger with 68%, Central Africa and 67% in Chad.

Research also expresses it that over 12 Millon girls are married off each year and 21% of young women were married of before early 18th Birthday. This is sad more so for the girl child who is affected psychologically as they are bound to suffer instance of domestic violence and worse still face death due to complications during pregnancy and birth.

Child Marriage(s) a Joke

The recent instance of exchange of marriage vows between 17 year old Nyaliong and a businessman Kok Alat in South Sudan that trended over twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms really proved it right that child marriage is taken as a joke in our community. Well, most of the South Sudan marriages are seen as fairs where families trade their daughters for cows. The practice is a gross human rights violation and violates the rights of a girl. It does not only deprive the girl child from education and limit her future opportunities in her life, but also increases the risk of violence, jeopardizes her health, reduces the girl child to a property, and deprives her from the right to choose. The world at large still has a big battle to fight in order to overcome this joke. However different humanitarian groups are coming up with solutions to aid this issue. Organizations like reach a hand Uganda, girls not brides and Egyptian foundation for advancement are working hard to resolve this problem. These have gone ahead to educate girls about their rights and different people have come up with hash tags like Arewa Me Too with the incentive of fighting such sickening actions. Different people are given chance to share their experiences and as well give advice on how to go about this problem on such hash tags.

Possible Solution through Professional Translations   

Over 25 million children have been liberated from child marriage over the past years globally and more hope is being installed amongst the children that 150 children will be saved by the year 2030. Different governments have come up with this issue as a target under the Sustainable Development Goals. Governments are putting forward ways on how to reduce on this evil manner say through educating girls about their rights and as well keeping them in school. However all this will be making a lot more sense if governments and other organizations work hand in hand with professional translation companies to provide language translations   like Dinka, Arabic, Somali among many others.

These can help educate the affected and those that are likely to fall victim through languages that they understand better hence making a change in the world at large.

How to win the African market

Are you a manager or business person and you want to sell your services or products in Africa? Or are you planning on settling on the continent and creating a company? Thanks to the user-friendly online platforms like WordPress and social media, where small businesses and startups can tap the same powerful sales channels and marketing tactics used by big-budget players. In fact, brilliant entrepreneurs regularly outperform major brands by creating attention-grabbing content that attracts vast audiences worldwide.

The key to your success will be: selling well. The majority says, “It’s like everywhere!”, but the reality differs from that. In other markets, it’s just about recruiting the right people and doing some market analysis. Africa has other particularities you must consider as to win its market namely:-

Know your product and your target

Knowing who is most likely to buy your product is step one in winning the African market. The whole point of learning how to market a product effectively is to connect you with your audience and convert them into paying customers. To achieve this, you first need to identify and define who is looking for and most likely to buy your product. Having your ideal buyer in mind helps you develop an engaging product story that will make them want to buy and target your tactics to the channels they’re most likely to use.

Assuming you know your product well or you are already very familiar with the service you are going to offer. It is essential to identify your target accurately:

  • Region (Central Africa, West Africa, East Africa, etc.)
  • Country
  • Language
  • Cities (ports, capitals, etc)
  • Socio-professional categories

Checkout detailed information about these:-

  • Region

Identify which section of Africa you are more interested in for your particular product or services. Could it be in the West, East, the north, south or central of Africa?

       About Africa
Africa is the world’s second largest and most-populous continent, being behind Asia in both categories. At about 30.3 million square km (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth’s total surface area and 20% of its land area. With 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world’s human population. Africa’s average population is the youngest among all the continents, the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. The continent is surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Isthmus of Suez and Red Sea to the northeast, the Indian Ocean to the southeast and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The continent includes Madagascar and various archipelagos with Algeria as its largest country by area, and Nigeria as its largest by population. Africa contains 54 fully recognized sovereign majority of the continent and its countries are in the Northern Hemisphere, with a substantial portion and number of countries in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the only continent to stretch from the northern temperate to southern temperate zones. More about Africa. So, with this in mind, choose a region(s) that will best suit your product or service.

  • Country

After identifying the region, it’s also vital to be specific with the particular country/countries you’re targeting within that region. For-instance, in East Africa, it could be Uganda, Kenya or Tanzania, Rwanda or Burundi! Choose one or those that are most compatible with your products or services.

  • Language

I believe that it’s hard to find even a single country in the universe using a single language, right! Usually countries use various languages lets say French, Ganda, Swahili, just a few listed. If Tanzania (northern) is your focus country, it would be brilliant for you to localize your product content to Chaga language, and other dialects such as Kivunjo, Kimarangu, among others. Localizing your product content into your target country’s languages can work like magic.

  • Cities

Within the country that you yarn to win market, it’s important to identify which cities you hope to put more emphasis. For example in Uganda one can base on cities like Kampala, Jinja, Mbarara, among others depending on what you’re willing to offer and the environment. Now, one may wonder why these among the other cities? Personally I’ve never seen or heard of any business person aiming at being average, have you? We all aim at excelling beyond. The above cities have got the largest population with both business people and final consumer, in such a way that people travel from wherever to reach these cities for their desired products or services. So be critical about that as well.

Research the competition

Studying your competition can tell you a lot about the customers who buy similar products, where they shop, and how much they’re willing to spend. Many business marketing classes teach participants how to perform a SWOT (strengths, weakness, opportunities and threads) analysis. You have to start by taking a serious look at your competitors. Make a list of the businesses that offer products or services similar to the one you plan to launch. Even if you think your new product or service is entirely unique and without existing competition, it’s important to put yourself in your prospective customer’s shoes and imagine what they might buy in place of what you plan to offer. Once you decide who your competitors will be, take time to review their marketing materials, including their websites, brochures and ads. Gauge how your new product or service will stand up against what’s already being offered, in what ways you’ll excel, and which companies or their offerings pose the greatest threats to your success.

Define your marketing tactics, tools and channels

Once you know who your customer is and what your competition is up-to, you’re ready to choose your sales and marketing channels to reach buyers. Will you market online, via catalog or through dealers, for example? Generally, multi-channel marketers achieve the greatest success because customers who can shop when and however they like tend to spend more and shop more often. Suppose your strategy is to market a product to people who can’t afford high-priced home equipment. You might choose traditional direct marketing plus online sales as your primary channels, and employ tactics including direct marketing plus online sales as your primary channels, and employ tactics including direct response TV spots and online ads and email solicitations that link to your website.

Craft up a compelling story

A product story that solves a problem or elicits an emotional response is what resonates with shoppers, converts them to buyers, and makes your brand memorable. At this stage, you should have a clear understanding of what you must offer in order to stand apart from your competition and who will want to take advantage of your offer. However, do you know why customers will want to buy from you vs. the vast field of competitors out there? What benefits and features will you provide that your prospective customers will value most? All in all, make sure that your product or service “bundle” is unique and meets the needs and desires of your best prospects.

Localize your website/ content

Localization simply refers to the process of making something local in character or restricting it to a particular place. Many companies have realized a boost in global sales, have won a global brand presence, and have generated product acceptance as a direct result of their localization efforts.

As you wish to grow and look to expand to Africa, localizing your website or content is crucial to ensure successful market entry. While the World’s Internet usage has increased since the year 2000, most of the world market, in terms of internet usage, still has not been tapped leaving immense room for growth. You must look at localization as not only a strategic advantage, but as a necessity to capitalize on your growth opportunities in Africa.

Here are some of the changes that you need to make to your websites: rewriting text and translating text, modifying graphics and creating new graphics, changing colors and layout, and modifying tables, forms, databases and database fields.

Plan for long-term success

Successful product marketing is a pursuit with intermittent spirits, so planning includes a mix of long- and short-term sales channels and outreach tactics.

Test your concept and marketing approach

With all the money it takes to bring a new product or service to market, it’s risky to rush into the launch phase foregoing testing. What should you test? It’s best to examine your product or service bundle plus your marketing message and your marketing materials. Depending on what you plan to market and your budget, you can use formal focus groups or simply host round-table discussions with members of the target audience, employ online research or marketplace confront studies, or distribute your product to a select group of users for testing. Only after testing is complete, should you proceed to the final creation of your marketing tools and materials.

Unveil your campaign

Public relations often play a vital role in the launch of a product or service. You can use media relations to place articles and win interviews, get coverage by allowing key press to review your product, hold a launch event, or use popular marketing to build buzz. But no matter what publicity route you choose, first make sure your product or service is completely ready and available for purchase in order to maximize returns from the coverage you receive. And your other marketing efforts should follow closely and the heels of your press unveil. Monitor the results from all media, and in the first weeks and months, be prepared to adjust your campaign to take advantage of what’s working best.

Know your product’s life-cycle

The campaign you use during the introduction and education phase of your product or service launch will need to be updated as your product or service matures. If you’re monitoring your marketing results carefully, you’ll begin to see diminishing returns that will indicate when it’s time to revise the product or service itself, alter your media message, or even phase out this particular offering and lay the groundwork for the launch of your next great idea.

In conclusion

We’ve talked about the many product marketing tools and tactics at your disposal. However, to maximize these efforts, you really must start at your product marketing journey in Africa with a good understanding of your target buyer and competition. You can certainly consider “a know how to win market in Africa for a new product”, right; but above all, you must start with good fundamentals. Good-luck as you bundle to stow the African market.

How to Tackle Environmental Degradation Through Translations

Environmental degradation refers to the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air and soil leading to destruction of ecosystem and existent of wild life. This process can be as a result of various reasons say human activities like lumbering, bricklaying, grazing settlement and agriculture. Such activities have created various crisis on the climate change, pollution and depletion as well. With such crisis, the earth has not been spared from changes like earthquakes, floods, landslides, strong winds and a lot of natural hazards.

Instances Suffered as a Result of Environmental Degradation

Due to the natural hazards, say earthquakes, floods, and prolonged droughts, many nations have lived to regret the days of stay on planet earth.  You should note that, earthquakes kill, on average, about 20,000 people every year. Great masses all over the world are suffering consequences of degradation. In Africa many cities are hit by the strong landslides that leave many dead for example over the past years hundreds of people have been killed- countries like Uganda where hundreds of people have been displaced and many dead due to landslides in different parts of the country like Bududa. Another instance happened in January 2018, when officials in Cape Town announced that the city of 4 million people was three months away from running out of municipal water, the world was stunned. Labelled “Day Zero” by local officials and brought on by three consecutive years of anemic rainfall, April 12, 2018, was to be the date of the largest drought-induced municipal water failure in modern history.

Hope Expressed Through Professional Translations

Various groups and organizations have come up with various campaigns to educate the world about the essence of protecting the environment. These have   gone to plant trees and providing equipment’s as well like the iron bars, gas cookers, in name of solving issues related to the environment.  Campaigns like go green and Tuve ku kaveera have tried to educate different persons to avoid degrading the environment. However in regards to their effort, there is still hope that once such organizations work hand in hand with professional translation companies such catastrophes will be washed out. This can be done best through professional translation service that can avail basic information to the world at large in different languages that various people understand best. Some of these African languages include Swahili, Lingala, Oromo, Tigrinya, Somali, Bemba, Malagasy, Wolof, Luganda, Madi, Ndebele among many others. This has no exception with the European and Asian languages like German, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and many others. Mandarin/Cantonese, Thai, Punjabi, Urdu, Indonesian/Bahasa, Malay, Hindi and many more.

The environment will hopefully be at a better position free from degradation.

The Most Deadly Strain of Ebola Strikes Again

Ebola can as well be referred to as hemorrhagic fever. Ebola is a virus disease that causes problems with how blood clots which results into internal bleeding as blood leaks from small blood vessels in one’s body. Ebola can be transmitted through direct contact with body fluids say blood, saliva, sweat, tears, mucus, vomit  of people infected with it. Therefore one should stay away from the infected in order to reduce the spread. Symptoms of the disease may comprise fever, sore throat, headache, muscular pain and diarrhea and these are most likely to appear 21 days after one has been affected. Thus with such symptoms one is required to seek early treatment before the disease cannot be treated any more.

The national laboratory (INRB) confirmed on 7 August that the current outbreak is of the Zaire Ebola virus, a deadly one and the same one that affected West Africa during the 2014-2016 outbreak.

 Historical Facts About Ebola

With the current outbreak occurring in the North Kivu (Kivu Nord) and Ituri provinces of the DRC being the most populated provinces in DRC, one should know that it is not the first.

History has that Ebola was just discovered in the early 1970 in the democratic republic of Congo formerly known as Zaire. It’s outbreak, Infected over 300 people covering over 200 deaths from then on wards, sporadic out break have occurred in Africa with an expectation of years between 1979-1994 with a death of over 400 people in year  2000.The recent outbreak started accumulating again in August 2018 from Congo and into Uganda around 9th-10th of June. With such a worry, various groups have since then come up with campaigns to fight this disease say the most popularly known UN, Red Cross and USAID. These all working hand in hand to sensitize people about the killer disease and encouraging people to report any suspicion of the disease early to the concerned persons. They have as well gone ahead to educate people on how to live Ebola free.

Declare a Global Emergency

In 2014, the WHO’s decision to declare the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern or PHEIC — came less than five months after the virus was detected. At that point, there had been fewer than 1,000 deaths.

In the current outbreak, the WHO’s emergency committee debated the issue three times — in October, April and just last month, as the outbreak enters its second year. But the emergency committee concluded that the ongoing response would not be enhanced by formal temporary recommendations from WHO.”

For example, a declaration could inadvertently provoke travel bans, visa cancellations and trade freezes, which would further devastate the fragile region’s economy while making health workers’ jobs more difficult. International health regulations forbid such actions, but they happen anyway. Fifty-eight countries restricted travel from West Africa during the 2014-2016 epidemic, and several airlines ceased flights to and from the region.

Research also suggests that the decision to declare a global emergency is often influenced by an outbreak’s degree of impact on the United States. In 2014, the PHEIC designation came just six days after infected health workers first arrived the United States.

Sensitize People about the Killer Disease

One wise man once said that two heads are better than one. Therefore with such a saying most preferably groups should vividly work hand in hand with professional translation companies to sensitize people about the disease. Despite that people still believe that this disease is meant to steal from them by foreigners so as to make money, there is still a better way to educate the masses on how to eradicate this epidemic. This can be done best through professional translation service that can avail basic information to the world at large in different languages that various people understand best. Some of these African languages include Swahili, Lingala, Yoruba, Tigrinya, Somali, Bemba, Kinyarwanda, Rukiga, Madi, Ndebele among many others. This has no exception with the European and Asian languages like German, Spanish, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian, Turkish and many others. Mandarin/Cantonese, Thai, Punjabi, Urdu, Indonesian/Bahasa, Malay, Hindi and many more.