The Indigo Trust has awarded Translators Without Borders a grant of $14,500 towards making Wikipedia medical articles available in Africa in as many languages as possible.

In September of last year, Translators Without Borders (TWB) co-founder, Lori Thicke, spoke about her commitment to bridging information gaps through language translation, and on how her organization is amplifying digital content in order to reach those the developing world who need that information.

Now the Indigo Trust has announced that it has awarded Translators Without Borders a $14,500 grant in support of TWB’s 80 x 100 Project. The project is aimed at making the most popular Wikipedia medical articles (on issues like HIV and polio) available in Africa, translated into as many African languages as possible.

The continent of Africa is home to more than 2,000 languages that are spread across six major language families. Nigeria alone has more than 500 tongues spoken within its borders. Some African languages are spoken by tens of millions of people.

Common Sense Advisory surveyed 364 translators for African languages in 49 countries representing a total of 269 language combinations — including such unique pairings as Chichewa into Finnish; Czech into Swahili; and Sesotho into German.

59.7% of the translators surveyed provide spoken language interpreting as well as written language translation.

94.92% believed that greater access to translation would have a positive impact of the collective health of people living in Africa.

Most dramatically, 63.07% of African translators said that greater access to translated information could have prevented the loss of life of people in their family or circle of friends.