Language Company to Help U.N. Reach 100 Million Children with Translation of Global Goals

PACIFIC GROVE, Calif. - June 3, 2015 - PRLog -- Translation By Design,a provider of language translation services and cross-cultural awareness training to global companies, announces a partnership with Reading With Pictures to donate translation services for a comic series destined to educate more than 100 million children, in 11 languages, about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

In September representatives from around the world will gather at the United Nations to ratify the list of newly developed goals. The 17 SDG’s focus on solving the world’s biggest challenges and seek to unite humanity behind this “global to-do list” that includes eliminating hunger, no poverty, fair access to education, clean drinking water, gender equality, protecting our oceans, and others. Reading With Pictures and its partners, have organized international teams to write, illustrate and distribute a short educational comic for each of the 17 global goals. The hope is that these comics will reach 100 million young people around the world.

“If the Sustainable Development Goals are met they ensure the health, safety, and future of the planet for everyone on it,” said Sandra DeLay, president and founder of Translation By Design. “I was drawn to support this project because of its ambitious global goals and particularly because of its focus on educating and empowering young people. Children need to know and believe they have the power to make a difference. These comics have the power to shape their actions today which will impact the planet for decades.”

Translation By Design is donating the translation and typesetting of the comics into Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, and French, the other official languages of the United Nations, plus Japanese, Swahili, Hindi, Malay, and Portuguese. The company joins Dark Horse Comics, Andrews McMeel Universal, Peanuts Inc., and other renown comic writers, artists, and publishers that are contributing to the effort.

“Comics are a kind of universal visual language, one that’s ideal for communicating important concepts to diverse audiences,” added Josh Elder, founder of Reading with Pictures. “Concepts don’t get any more important than the Global Goals, and audiences don’t get any more diverse than the entirety of the human race. For that reason Translation By Design is one of our heroes on this project. Their translation services will ensure the comics are accessible in the languages spoken by more than half of the world’s population.”

The comics will be released as part of The World’s Largest Lesson and Project Everyone which seeks to educate every person on the planet about the SDGs when they are ratified in September. Reading With Pictures has a Kickstarter campaign, active through June 4th, seeking to raise $60,000 to help cover the costs of the first phase of the comics’ production.

“These goals are the most important long term plan we have for our planet. The success of the SDGs is our success; their failure is our failure. Failure cannot be an option. I urge everyone to support this effort either through the Reading With Pictures Kickstarter campaign or by sharing The World’s Largest Lesson website with friends and colleagues.” Ms. DeLay continued, “Monterey is the Language Capital of the World. As we celebrate our 10^th anniversary, we couldn’t be more excited to represent our community on the global stage by contributing our expertise to a project that will improve people’s lives and the health of our planet. We will be reaching out to more organizations locally and hope others will join in spreading this important mission for humanity.”

ABOUT TRANSLATION BY DESIGN

Translation By Design is a global language services provider based in Pacific Grove, California. TBD offers comprehensive language translation services in more than 200 languages along with cultural training programs for a variety of industries. Services include: document and multimedia translation; in-person and over-the-phone interpreters for tour groups, conferences, events, legal matters, and more; conference interpreting equipment and technicians; cross-cultural training services to help global teams and business executives work more effectively across cultures. Translation By Design uniquely places purpose before profit, desiring that their work contribute to understanding, compassion, and the highest human potential. Visit http://www.translationbydesign.com.

ABOUT READING WITH PICTURES

Reading With Pictures is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that promotes the use comics in education in order to improve learning outcomes for all students. They get comics into schools, and they get schools into comics.