Looking back over 2020, it wasn’t all bad and we have worked on some exciting projects this year…
We have a long-standing partnership with Historic Environment Scotland and 2020 saw us translating information sheets, maps, guides, and leaflets into multiple languages for some of Scotland’s most important historical sites such as Edinburgh Castle, Stirling Castle, Melrose Abbey, and Dunblane Cathedral. See our Blog about these fascinating projects here.
2020 resulted in an increased use of Zoom and other online platforms to help facilitate communications between clients, customers and the weekly quizzes that millions of us participated in.
In the autumn, we were delighted to be extensively involved in the Edinburgh International Cultural Summit (EICS), providing translation and subtitles for this well-established, prestigious event.
The EICS interviews contained conversations with some fascinating people, including, amongst others, Andy Haldane, Chief Economist, Bank of England; Andrew Gilmour, Former Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations; Rahul Mehrotra, Professor of Urban Design and Planning, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University & David Strathairn, Actor.
As a result of the pandemic, Global Connects has been working extremely hard, providing translations for official documentation for shielding patients, government rules and regulations, and also helping the many schools which have been trying to launch remote learning during lockdown. It has been a massive undertaking, but we are proud to be helping people in some small way during this tough year.
Another of our long-standing partners, Bòrd na Gàidhlig (BNG), has had a busy 2020 and we have worked with them on numerous projects, most notably translating the Gaelic Language Plan. We had a video catch-up with Louise NicIlleathain, Operations Manager and Megan NicGill-Fhaolain, Communications Officer at the end of the last year, which you can find here, where we discussed working through the pandemic, adapting to working from home and what they are looking forward to in the coming months. We love working with BNG and our work with them on Gaelic translations enables us also to work on Gaelic Language Plans for other clients such as Education Scotland and Southern Ayrshire Council.
Our expertise in Gaelic was further put to the test when we were tasked with working on Ayrshire Road Signs which didn’t have any official translations. We understand the importance of a protected language like Gaelic and worked with Ainmean-Àite na h-Alba and Dr Alastair MacCaluim to research and approve the official names for Pinmore, Pinwherry, Barhill, and Colmonell. Visit our Blog to find out more about the Gaelic translations, here.
These are just a few snippets of some of the exciting projects we have worked on this year in spite of a global pandemic and, in addition to the above, we have worked on websites, voiceover projects, transcription tasks and many more and varied client requirements throughout 2020. All this has been achieved despite our staff working from home for most of the year. A massive thanks has to go out to all members of staff who have made this happen, in spite of all the many obstacles arising from the pandemic. We have invested a lot of time and energy in making our working practices both safe and efficient and, as you can see from the impressive array of work above, this has paid off. We are not naïve: we know the market is still difficult, but if you are looking for a language company that does what its name says, get in touch with me today!
Fiona Woodford, Head of Language Services, Global Connects