Sport and development MOOC to be made available in all UN official languages

On September 30, International Translation Day, we are delighted to announce a new partnership that will result in the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC): Sport for Sustainable Development: Designing Effective Policies and Programmes being translated from English into French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese, the official languages of the United Nations.

This partnership is a result of collaboration between the MOOC Steering Group, which comprises the International Platform on Sport and Development (sportanddev), the Australian Government and the Commonwealth Secretariat, who are founding partners of the global course.

The partnership reflects the commitment of the MOOC Steering Group and TWB to increase the accessibility of information and learning resources available to those working across the international development sector, including within the field of sport and development.

TWB will lend their considerable expertise in translation and using language as a tool for development to translate the current content into the other UN official languages. The translated courses will then be launched and made publicly available in 2022 (dates tbd).

Commenting on the partnership, TWB's Partnership Development and Customer Success Coordinator, María Ramos, said:

At TWB, the founding pillar of CLEAR Global, we're proud to partner with sportanddev in initiatives aiming to bring vital content to a wider audience. Translating the ‘Sport for Sustainable Development: Designing Effective Policies and Programmes’ course into the UN languages is a good start to bringing down language barriers. We hope our partnership will lead us to include marginalized languages in the scope of future projects.

sportanddev senior consultant and lead educator for the course Dr Ben Sanders said:

We are delighted to agree a partnership with TWB that will dramatically increase the availability of our online course. This will help tackle linguistic barriers that still limit access to information and resources, helping to make sport and development more inclusive and equitable.

Ben Howard, Chair of the sportanddev Steering Board stated:

One of the things we were conscious of when putting together this course was that learners should be able to see relatable people, experiences and contexts in the course, wherever they were in the world. We wanted to ensure that users had the opportunity to explore different international and cultural approaches to sport and development from those delivering sport-centred programs on a day-to-day basis. Being able to now make the course available in a variety of languages not only means that a wider, more diverse audience can access the course, but that these experiences and learnings can be more widely and accessibly shared.

Background

The global online open access course was launched in July 2020 by the MOOC Steering Group to maximise the contribution that sport can make to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and other priorities.

The course is designed to build capacity among individuals and organisations using sport for development in their policies and programmes. As of 30 September, over 5,000 learners from 179 countries have enrolled in the course, representing a diverse set of organisations.

The course has only been available in English to date, and we recognise that this limits access to information and leaves certain communities and regions under-represented. Language availability is a critical factor in enabling people to access vital knowledge in their own languages. This partnership aims to support global communities in learning how to maximise the potential of sport for sustainable development and as an enabler of the SDGs.

The MOOC Steering Group are open to further partnership opportunities to support the course and its availability in additional languages.

For more information contact Ben Sanders: [email protected]