Reaching our full potentials through fair trade

Over the last two weeks we have outlined the first fair trade principle: Create opportunities for economically and socially marginalized producers, and the second principle: Develop transparent and accountable relationships.

This week we move on to the third principle, “Build Capacity”.

The principle refers to developing vendor’s independence, including their capacity to succeed in more business relationships than just one. TLC builds the capacity of our linguists by creating long-term relationships based on solidarity, trust and mutual respect. We do not jump from vendor to vendor looking for the lowest price, but rather invest in the long-term growth of our linguists.

We provide resources to help enable discussions of relevant topics, disperse new information that is helpful to those in the translation industry, and give linguists the opportunity to meet virtually and discuss the industry.

Beyond the blog, TLC has a variety of resources for our linguists. We have done physical workshops and trainings out of our Fort Worth office. We have made our translation software easily accessible and free. This year, we will be launching a YouTube channel to deliver webinars, training videos, instructions and professional development to linguists worldwide! Keep an eye out for upcoming videos.

There are many positive ways in which TLC is helping to build capacity for our linguist team members.

There is also a struggle that I see within the translation industry that I want to address. This struggle is sometimes viewed as counteractive to building capacity for our linguists—the work available is irregular.

We cannot always guarantee a certain monthly workload for all of our translators; however, there are two key commitments that set us apart and keep us focused on fair trade:

• We work hard every day to secure projects that will allow us to provide a steady weekly or monthly volume of work;
• We do not jump from linguist to linguist for a cheaper price; instead we invest in our team members as we ask them to invest their skills in us.

Our owner and CEO, Hana Laurenzo, is herself a translator by background; she built this company with the understanding of what life as a freelance translator entails, including all the related concerns and frustrations. She began TLC as a way to help provide more freelancers access to new markets and jobs that large corporations would not assign to an individual linguist.

We value the partnership with our team of linguists and we look forward to continuing to support your professional growth. Know that we are working hard for you and for the community of freelancers. We appreciate all that you do for us and hope to continue to improve the ways we serve you.