On the 30th and 31st of January 2020, the Translation, Interpreting and East Asia Studies Department of the UAB hosted the kick off meeting of the project “Empowering Young Language Brokers for Inclusion in Diversity”, EYLBID for short, funded by the European Comission and coordinated by the MIRAS research group of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
This Project is a strategic partnership of 5 higher education institutions and one social enterprise and focuses on one of the European horizontal priorities: social inclusion. Particularly, it focuses on linguistic and intercultural mediation and interpreting performed by teenagers.
Children and teenagers take an important role in migratory processes. Schooling and linguistic immersion in the new society help children learn the official language(s) of the new country faster than their parents might do. For this reason, these bilingual young people are the ones in their families who carry out the hard work of interpreting and translating to mediate communication between themselves and the outside world, between minority and majority communities. On many occasions, children and youngster mother tongues which differ from the official ones are not given sufficient value and role in the school setting.
EYLBID places special emphasis on creating awareness of the existence of the young interpreters’ phenomenon across Europe. EYLBID will contribute to the visibility of the phenomenon and will empower young interpreters in their school contexts. The project, which will last two years (2020-21) will contribute to the respect for linguistic diversity and cultural richness and will foster a flexible attitude towards cultural diversity and traditions.