Contract length: 8 months
Hours: 100% from November to December 2023 and 50% from January 2024
Location: Maiduguri, Nigeria
Travel: Minimal within Nigeria
Reporting to: Language Services Senior Officer
Remuneration: 700,000-749,000 Naira/month
Deadline for applications: 8 November, 2023
Translators without Borders (TWB) is an equal-opportunity employer, committed to having a diverse team where individuals of all backgrounds collaborate and learn from one another. We believe we can be most effective with diverse experience and expertise in our team. We recruit on merit, actively seek diverse applicant pools and encourage candidates of all backgrounds to apply. We do not discriminate on the basis of disability, age, gender identity and expression, national origin, race and ethnicity, religious beliefs, marital or parental status, or sexual orientation, and welcome all types of diversity.
The Role
The Content Lead will report to the Language Services Senior Officer and will be responsible for supporting high-quality community engagement services in Nigeria in the form of innovative, creative, and effective two-way communication with communities through digital channels and chatbots (conversational agents).
The incumbent will develop, process, and, where necessary, translate content and liaise with the Content Development Officer, partners, and the tech team on content development for a communication tool. In addition, they will deliver and support colleagues in the delivery of transcriptions, audio recordings, and other language services to humanitarian organizations, and contribute to research, training, and monitoring activities.
Responsibilities
Language services
- Produce high quality and timely content, translations, transcriptions, and audio recordings in Shuwa (using both Arabic and Latin script for written content)
- Ensure that the content is culturally relevant, engaging, and designed for the Shuwa speaking community
- Engage with partners in the editorial process to decide how chatbot conversations should be developed
- Working with the Content Development Officer, contribute to the weekly chatbot content meetings with partners, developing content in Shuwa, editing the messaging based on community feedback and responding to community feedback
- Work closely with the content team (Kanuri and Hausa) to develop engaging, appropriate, and consistent conversations and messaging across languages using assigned tools that will support the technical team in training the chatbot.
- Act as the focal point for receiving and incorporating feedback on the chatbot through the pilot testing and rollout phase and ensuring the content is responsive to community needs.
- Support in maintaining and enhancing chatbot platform to meet changing needs of the users
- Contribute to the development of glossaries, guidance notes, language factsheets and field testing of terminology and community engagement content
- Assist with the development and rollout of new communication tools as well as demo training
- Apply plain language principles and design content for low literacy context as well as propose (where appropriate), non-textual content such as images, pictorials or audio/visual content
Other responsibilities
- Participate in and support with monitoring, evaluation and research activities
- Contribute to regular internal reporting and donor reporting as required
- Liaise with the global chatbot team to share and learn from best practices and lessons learned in other country programs and to inform the design of Shuwa-language conversation
- Maintain good professional relationships with TWB volunteers and partner agencies
- Contribute to a positive and innovative work environment within TWB
The role will evolve along with the overall program as projects develop to reflect the changing language needs of the affected population and humanitarian community in North East Nigeria.
Qualifications
Required
- University degree
- Mother tongue speaker of Shuwa with excellent writing and speaking skills (for written content both Arabic and Latin script is required in Shuwa and English.
- 3+ years experience in translation or interpretation between English and Shuwa
- Computer and technology literate (including Microsoft Office, Google documents and sheets)
- Ability to quickly learn new digital systems
- Familiarity with social media and messaging platforms (WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.) and knowledge of popular social media accounts in the region
- Availability to travel to locations with volatile security
- Strong communication skills
Desirable
- Experience of working with or/and managing small teams of volunteers
- Previous experience with non-profit organizations, particularly in development and/or humanitarian response
- Experience in Community Engagement
- Experience of Computer Assisted Translation tools
- Fluency in other languages of Nigeria is an advantage
- Experience of developing/translating content for digital communication channels
Essential Aptitude
- Ability to demonstrate initiative, be proactive and offer a solution-oriented approach
- Determined and committed to high quality standards with attention to detail
- Flexible and eager to adapt to different learning styles and changing circumstances
- Ability to establish effective and collaborative working relationships at all levels internally and externally
- Ability to prioritize work, meet deadlines and work calmly under pressure
- Commitment to TWB’s mission
About Translators without Borders
Translators without Borders believes that everyone has the right to give and receive information in a language and format they understand. We work with nonprofit partners and a global community of language professionals to build local language translation capacity, and raise awareness of language barriers. Originally founded in 1993 in France (as Traducteurs sans Frontières), TWB translates millions of words of life-saving and life-changing information a year.
Core Values
Translators without Borders employees and volunteers are made of people who believe passionately about the value of this work and take personal responsibility for achieving the mission. Translators without Borders’ mission and organizational spirit embody the core values established in its strategic framework:
Excellence: As the leading voice for communicating humanitarian information in the right language, Translators without Borders is a leader in the translation industry and in the non-profit sector.
Integrity: Translators without Borders believes that every person, whether it is the people who we serve, our volunteers or our staff, has value, deserves respect and has inherent dignity.
Empowerment: Translators without Borders believes in using language to empower people around the world to control their own development and destiny.
Innovation: Translators without Borders recognizes and celebrates the power of innovation to address humanitarian and crisis issues around the world.
Sustainability: Translators without Borders recognizes that meeting our mission necessitates establishment and maintenance of a solid financial and organizational infrastructure.
Tolerance: Our staff and volunteers are highly knowledgeable and skilled; value each other, our partner and our recipients; create a supportive work environment; and, conduct themselves professionally at all times.
TWB may re-advertise the vacancy, cancel the recruitment, offer an appointment with a modified job description or for a different duration at its discretion.