The flag of Ukraine.
This will be a short post. I want to tell you about something inspiring I got involved with that ended yesterday.
Full-blown war in Ukraine started February 24 when Russia invaded the sovereign nation, but Russia had been attacking and nibbling away at Ukrainian territory for years, and Ukraine was ready to defend itself.
Shortly thereafter, a Ukrainian journalist called Igor Nalyvaiko, alarmed at the Russian disinformation he was seeing all over social media, especially English-language social media, set up a counter-effort.
Working with Ukrainian media people who spoke English, and reaching out to editor types like blogger Asakiyume and me who are native English speakers, he launched a noble experiment that lasted until July 11, when the media company backing him shut down. In the process, he built a team of new friends — Ukrainian and American — who feel invested in one another’s lives because we were interacting 24/7 across a seven-hour time difference.
If you have ever been devastated by an injustice in the world and learned that in addition to donating money, you could contribute a skill you happened to have, you will understand what a gift this was to the volunteer “proofreaders.”
I will quote from an explanation of the initiative that Igor wrote for the new proofreaders who kept signing on.
“Ukraine: Battling Disinformation In the Fight for Existence – A Voice From Ukraine 25 March 2022
“Hi Guys,
“I was requested to shortly outline the principles of this translation initiative and its purpose for the new coming proofreaders.
“U24 World is a 24/7 news outlet covering the current situation in Ukraine following the Russian invasion. Its aim is delivery of truthful information to fight Russian propaganda worldwide. The initiative was urged by a group of enthusiasts and workers of the national TV Channel Ukraine and volunteers who were able to join in the fight on the information frontline.
“Being assigned as a translator and a coordinator of the translators’ team (In my past life I used to be a host and a journalist but had to join the ‘international battalion’ and really think that can do much more here at the moment), I started to look for native speakers (English) proofreaders who could help in adaptation of the news for the western audiences (making the information readable), refining the word flow and delivery ,since we are working non-stop to cover every event that might be useful and can shed light onto the actual state of affairs taking place here in Ukraine.
“The work is arranged as follows: as we work 24/7 for optimization reasons we operate in 4-hour shifts. However the times are quite hard and not each one can afford 4 hours to devote to the project, so I am coordinating the group to make the process as comfortable as possible to the realistic extent under warfare conditions.
“There are editors who send Ukrainian news in the group chat, a translator (who is on the shift) picks up the news and sends a translation back into the chat tagging a native speaker who is on the shift. the English proofreader checks the translation and refines it so that it looks readable for English-speaking audience and then tags a Ukrainian proofreader (who is on the shift). The latter one checks if the information is not distorted in the final proofread adaptation compared to the initial Ukrainian news and tags an editor, which means that the editor can pick it up and post the news on one of these three platforms: Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. …
“Thank you for your assistance and support. Yours, Igor.”
I think it’s safe to say, that grateful as we are to have been part of the collaboration, it also meant something special to our Ukrainian partners running to bomb shelters that strangers across the world were donating hours of their time, expecting nothing in return — just wanting to say, “You are not alone.”
My team may never know why this noble experiment shut down so suddenly, but we will cherish the experience and will, of course, continue to support Ukraine in other ways.
If interested, check out an audio summary at Happiness Quotient, here.
Suzanne's Mom's Blog 