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Thorne Harbour Health

Thorne Harbour Health is a community organisation dedicated to supporting and enhancing the health of people who identify as LGBTI. Ethnolink proudly provided translations for Thorne Harbour Health's What Works campaign for the prevention and treatment of HIV within the LGBTI community.

We worked closely with Thorne Harbour Health to translate their campaign into 4 languages — Simplified Chinese, Filipino, Brazilian Portuguese and Vietnamese.

The client

Thorne Harbour Health is a community organisation founded in 1983 as part of Victoria's response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Since then, it has established itself as a key organisation dedicated to the health needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) communities. It offers a range of services, including prevention education, treatment and care of PLHIV (People Living with HIV/AIDS), and counselling services.

About the project

Industry Medical & Healthcare
Services Professional translation (website, document and subtitle), independent checking, in-context review, and community checking
Languages Simplified Chinese, Filipino, Brazilian Portuguese, and Vietnamese
Documents What Works campaign materials, including posters, website, and videos

The challenge

We worked closely with the Thorne Harbour Health team to create a multilingual website for their What Works campaign.

As a website is an interactive medium, additional considerations were made to ensure that the user's experience of navigating and accessing the website is as smooth and intuitive as possible. This included translating seemingly minor details, such as functional text ("Back to the top", "Read more", "Main menu', etc.) and producing in-language metadata for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Our main challenge in translating the What Works website was in identifying the text other than the website copy that needed to be translated.

The solution

Our project management team conducted a rigorous analysis of the website to identify the elements that needed to be translated. In addition, we remained in close contact with the client and consulted with them to ensure that the client was fully aware of each element that was being translated.

We provided regular progress updates to our client and translators, and established an open dialogue. This facilitated the extensive coordination and flexibility needed to manage any issues that appeared throughout the website development process.

We are also continuing to work with the client to ensure that all the in-language text is being displayed correctly.

The results

In providing as thorough a translation of the website as possible, we were driven to ensure that the Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog and Portuguese speakers who would be engaging with the website have as close to equal access to the site as English speakers.

The What Works website is now published and available in English, Simplified Chinese, Tagalog, Brazilian Portuguese and Vietnamese. Ethnolink and Thorne Harbour Health are exceptionally proud of the positive impact in multicultural LGBTI communities that we are seeing through the What Works campaign.

Thorne Harbour Health is now a returning Ethnolink client whom we enjoy working with immensely.

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