If you are working with volunteers, there are a number of strategies you can use to recruit new ones. It is a good idea to try and attract new volunteers on an on-going basis, as you never know when your existing volunteers might have to stop or reduce the amount of time they dedicate to your project. When promoting opportunities you should be clear about the work involved and explain the benefits of volunteering as a translator for Cochrane. Please note, in all instances, anyone interested in joining your project needs to register officially through http://join.cochrane.org/what-you-can-do/translate so that we can track their contributions.
Use your networks and communication channels
You can publish a call for volunteers on your website and on the page with information about your translation project on cochrane.org. Similarly, you can make use of any existing communication channels you have to ask for help, for example in newsletters, through your social media channels, or mailing list.
Add a call to the translation notes
Cochrane Croatia publishes the following call for action in the notes section of their translated plain language summaries.
The message informs people that translations are done voluntarily, and asks for help to translate the many remaining Cochrane plain language summaries that are yet to be translated from English:
Use social media
If you have a social media account, for example Facebook or Twitter, you can use it to post a call for volunteers and add a link to Join Cochrane: http://join.cochrane.org/what-you-can-do/translate
Another way of using social media is to look for volunteer organisations or student groups and contact them to see if they would be interested in volunteering with you. A good place to start is the professional networking website LinkedIn, which has many translation related groups where active discussions take place. You can look for volunteer translation, health or student groups in your language and post there. Remember that some social networks are better established in certain countries than in others, so use those that are most prominent in your country. You can also contact us if you would like more guidance.
Establish collaborations
Build on existing collaborations or look at forming partnerships to find more volunteers. There is often added and mutual value in these kinds of partnerships, for example sharing high quality content, helping with priority setting or dissemination, gaining experience, etc. Potential partners may include:
- Patient organisations
- Medical associations / specialist groups
- Medical journals
- Translation volunteer organisations
- University medical or language departments
Involve students
If you are affiliated with an academic institution, make the most of the resources you have to hand. Both medical and languages students may be interested in doing translation to learn and enhance their skills, while also helping a good cause. Several Cochrane translation teams have successfully integrated translation activities within their own teaching, or established collaborations with language departments of their universities or external translation courses, some of which specialise in scientific or medical translations.
Read how our Simplified Chinese project has integrated abstract translation into teaching: http://community.cochrane.org/news/cochrane-translations-integrating-cochrane-abstract-translation-practice-teaching
Cochrane Russia's student podcast project: http://community.cochrane.org/news/cochrane-translations-cochrane-russias-student-podcast-club
Cochrane France's post-editing project, with translation masters' students: http://community.cochrane.org/news/post-editing-machine-translated-cochrane-texts
How Cochrane Croatia involves students to increase translation capacity: http://community.cochrane.org/sites/default/files/uploads/inline-files/Croatia%20-%20crowdsourcing.pdf
If you would like to learn more about these partnerships, please contact us and we can give you more information.