Linguistic mediation for development cooperation. Training of teachers who work in the bilingual education program in Mozambique and cooperation for sustainable coastal development. These are the themes of the three research projects in the field of development cooperation of the University of Vigo that the Xunta de Galicia will subsidize in the call open for this year, which aims to create research groups that focus their activity on development cooperation. The three projects granted, two to researchers from the Faculty of Philology and Translation and the other to the Faculty of Marine Sciences, place the University of Vigo at the top of the Galician academic institutions in this call, in which they were also selected, out of a total of 14 projects presented for subsidy, each an initiative of the University of Santiago de Compostela and the University of A Coruña.
Maria Isabel Doval, Vice-Chancellor for Social Responsibility, Internationalization and Cooperation at the University of Vigo, acknowledges the pride that the Vigo academic institution has in achieving this success in a call in which Vigo presented eight out of a total of 14 proposals. “We aspire to create a large group of researchers from all teaching categories on development and cooperation and the University, from the recently created International Projects Office, will support them in promoting their ideas and projects”, points out Doval, who assures that the promotion of research on development and cooperation constitutes a fundamental link in the chain of activities of the University of Vigo related to the search for a more humane, sustainable and responsible world. For his part, Xosé Mahou, Director of the Social Responsibility and Cooperation Area, highlights that numerous PDI of the Vigo academic institution “have been working for some time on issues related, directly or indirectly, to development cooperation and there are even groups of international prestige addressing, from different fields, central aspects of sustainable development contained in the 2030 Agenda”.
Quality linguistic mediation between NGOs and users
Led by researchers Maribel del Pozo Triviño and Silvia Pérez Freire and by researcher David Casado Neira, from the University of Vigo, and with the participation of the universities of Tras-Os-Montes and Alto Douro, A Coruña, Granada, Alicante and Jaume I, the Linguistic Mediation for Development Cooperation (MELINCO) project, “has direct applicability in the work done by ONGDs, since it will contribute to eliminating linguistic and cultural barriers faced by the most vulnerable people, thus guaranteeing human rights and fundamental freedoms, which are crucial for sustainable development, inclusive governance and social equity, as foreseen by the 2030 Agenda”, explains Maribel del Pozo, IP of the project.
On the one hand, the project in which NGOs such as Cruz Vermella Galicia, Médicos do Mundo, Solidariedade Galega Internacional, Provivienda and Asemblea de Cooperación pola Paz will participate, seeks to detect linguistic and cultural barriers that exist between the staff of the NGOs and the foreign populations with whom they work, with special attention to the usual practices and possible violations of the linguistic rights of the people assisted, to identify training needs in professional linguistic mediation through qualified interpreters. “Secondly, once these needs have been detected, both for oral interpretation and written translation, the project will process the results in order to, on the one hand, design and provide training adapted to the needs of the staff of the NGOs, and on the other, create a guide to good practices to improve multilingual communication in development cooperation contexts and also make culturally adapted translations of the materials that the NGOs need”, details the teacher and researcher from the Faculty of Philology and Translation.
MELINCO, which will take place between 2019 and 2020, has a budget of 30.00 euros.
Territorial planning for developing countries
Developing instruments for territorial planning, which can be used in developing countries, analyzing ecosystem services and potential environmental risks, with the aim of developing regulations applicable in different countries is the objective of the Cooperation for Sustainable Coastal Development project (UNESCO Chair). “It is mainly framed in Goal 11 of the SDGs Sustainable Cities and Communities and in particular in target 11.3, which states that by 2030 inclusive and sustainable urbanization and the capacity for participatory, integrated and sustainable planning and management of human settlements in countries must increase”, explains the researcher from the Department of Marine Geosciences and Territorial Planning and researcher at CIM-UVigo Gonzalo Méndez, IP of the project, which brings together researchers from the universities of Vigo and Santiago, in addition to other partners.
Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau and Mozambique are the target countries of this project, which is organized around three units: territorial analysis, ecosystem services and environmental risks and legal research. “Galician Cooperation is subsidizing this project with 25,000 euros, which offers the possibility of bringing together researchers and professionals from different fields of knowledge, which enables an integrated approach to a topic that requires a multidisciplinary approach,” says Méndez, who expresses his satisfaction at being able to provide this knowledge to developing countries in the context of the UNESCO Chair’s social commitment.
Teacher training for the bilingual education program in Mozambique
The teachers and researchers of the GRADES group of the Faculty of Philology and Translation of the University of Vigo Fernando Ramallo (IP), Susana Rodríguez Barcia and José María García-Miguel Gallego, together with two teachers from the Eduardo Mondlane University of Mozambique, are promoting the project Theoretical and methodological training, development, application and validation of educational materials in the Bilingual Education Program of Mozambique. “Edubilmo has as its immediate objective to contribute to the training of teachers who carry out their work in the bilingual education program in Mozambique; however, as it is a transitional model, the medium-term objective is to help mobilize the debate on its necessary improvement to transform it into a truly bilingual program, with teaching in Bantu languages plus the third year of primary education, which is where the current model goes,” explains Ramallo, who clarifies that until the 3rd year everything is taught in the mother tongue (Bantu), except for Portuguese, but from the 4th year, everything is in Portuguese, except for the Bantu mother tongue subject. “This only occurs in rural areas with a strong presence of indigenous languages, not in all schools in the country. That is, it is not a universal program, although it does have a presence in thousands of schools,” explains the UVigo professor.
With a budget of 30,000 euros, Edubilmo will develop teaching and learning materials, provide sociolinguistic training to teachers and be responsible for the development of metalanguage and scientific-technical terminologies in Bantu languages. “To do this, we will select five schools integrated into the current Bilingual Education Program of Mozambique, each with a different Mozambican language, with the aim of converting them into pilot schools for a more ambitious project, consisting of extending this methodology to all the languages of the country in the coming years,” explains Fernando Ramallo.
