MOVE: Volunteer Translating

The Multilingual Outreach Volunteer Effort (MOVE)

Who are we?

We created MOVE during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to address a gap in communicating critical information to those with limited English and digital resources. As both the number of volunteers and requests have grown, we are now able to focus on broader community translation needs, offering our international neighbors the opportunity to receive important information in their own languages, while promoting multilingualism at UVA. 

MOVE volunteers are UVA language students and language faculty, heritage speakers, and immigrants, representing 50+ languages. 

What do we do? 

  • We assist with small translating and interpreting requests from Charlottesville-area non-profit community-based and educational organizations, as well as units within UVA

What don't we do? 

As a volunteer organization:

  • We do not translate medical documents or interpret medical procedures (We leave this to the professionals!).
  • We do not do work outside of the UVA/Greater Charlottesville Community
  • We do not translate excessively long documents!
  • We do not do professional, paid translating and interpreting. All of our partners understand that we are volunteers and we cannot guarantee error-free translations. 


MOVE In the NewsDo I have to be bilingual? 

You do not need to have native-level proficiency or be bilingual to participate. Our volunteers have a wide range of translating skills and our translations are done collaboratively. Some people even involve their fluent families! You can always ask others for help. MOVE seeks to help our community with language resources while promoting multilingualism at UVA.

How do I join?

If you are interested in joining us, please fill out this form. Once you have filled out the form, we will contact you with our next translation/interpretation tasks. Contact us with questions at translations@virginia.edu.

 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Do you have a question? Take a look at our FAQs below for more information about MOVE.