We’ve used the Google translate function to give people access to a rough translation of this website in their own language.
Here, we tell the story of an exciting project which is supporting Transitioners to work together, often across distances, to produce high quality translations of a wealth of Transition materials.
The 
project
Communities around the world are coming together to create a low-carbon, socially-just, healthier and happier future. In the course of this work, they are producing all sorts of fascinating materials in different languages, including how-to guides, training materials, videos, interviews and research.
Regardless of the tongue, process and format, a common dialect spans this wealth of content —Transitionese. More and more people are speaking Transitionese!
There is a huge appetite and need for translation within the Transition movement. At the same time, many Transitioners have got great language skills and are keen to help make important materials more accessible.
In late 2015, Transition Network brought together a Portugese/Italian hybrid team to help the Transition movement expand its capacity to manage, undertake and share translations. Sara Moreira and Pedro Portela, from Moving Cause (a Portuguese non-profit association whose mission is “to mobilise concrete utopias”), and Deborah Rim Moiso, from Transition Italia, followed a Dragon Dreaming project design approach to enquire into and develop tools and process that could help strengthen the translation efforts of the Transition movement.
The project began with a Dreaming stage, whereby information was collected in conversations with key players throughout the movement. The project then moved to Planning and Action. The end of Autumn 2016 was a stage for Celebrating results, gathering learnings and feedback and Going Forth to new dreams. The design of the project was aligned with the seasons: Dreaming in the Spring and going into Action in Summer-Autumn.
The seven-month project resulted in a prototype web platform that provides online Transition resources in different formats and languages—showcasing material in French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish, as a start, but ready for expansion into new languages as the process evolves.
Transitionese also provides an innovative crowdsourcing approach to the translation of resources and information: Transition’s open source account at Transifex serves as a platform for collaboration on translation, including the creation of teams, the distribution of roles, and the sharing of glossaries and translation memory.
The potential of these tools to support transitioners near and far in improving local, national and international capacity for translation has been put on the table. Now we’re inviting more people to step into the process.
See what translated resources are already available and find out how to get involved, here…