History of ROZMAI

Rozmai was established in 2000 as an NGO with two main functions:

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• provide support to independent Ukrainian journalists, radio and TV reporters, and documentary filmmakers,

• help young translators with jobs and professional development.

 

Since 2000, Rozmai has produced over two dozen major TV and radio projects ranging from individual documentaries to regular weekly shows, all of them in the areas of human rights, public policy, minority situation, gender issues, and advocacy. A number of its documentary productions won national awards and were broadly released by dozens of TV and radio channels in Ukraine.

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Rozmai started its translation life by helping young fiction translators to get published as well as editing their pieces and providing professional language training. Soon its clients included thick literary magazines, independent think tanks and international NGOs. In 2002, Rozmai entered the market of conference interpretation, and in 2014 it established Media Center Rozmai that has been working as a full-fledged translation agency ever since.

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Today Rozmai has 28 major corporate clients and framework contracts for interpretation and translation services with the Council of Europe, projects of the EU Delegation in Ukraine, OECD, IOM, Swiss Cooperation Office, and a number of embassies and international foundations. It has translated important papers and reports for the Venice Commission, PACE, OSCE/ODIHR, European Parliament, IFES, National Democratic Institute, NATO, OECD, the Congress of Local Authorities, International Renaissance Foundation, and other international organizations. Rozmai has been selected as the provider of interpretation services for the joint missions of OSCE/ODIHR, PACE, NATO PA, and the Congress of Local Authorities during four latest election campaigns in Ukraine, including the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections. It has provided interpretation to a number of UN missions.

 

The Council of Europe has had four consecutive Framework Contracts for language services with Rozmai since 2009.

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Modus operandi

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Media Center Rozmai is registered as a private translation agency, a single-tax payer and non-VAT payer.

 

Rozmai hires certified interpreters and translators to carry out its assignments. All of them are based in Kiev and three in Lviv, with a number of local colleagues in the East of the country.

 

The list of translators that Rozmai hires regularly has two dozen persons, and up to forty interpreters. These are professional translators and conference interpreters who have been working with Rozmai for 10-12 years (and some since 2002), particularly in the areas of European affairs, elections, public administration, European and Ukrainian law, gender issues, penitentiary reform, security and defense, as well as public finance, tax, and budgeting.

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Ukraine is a bilingual country, and our interpreters/translators usually have to translate from/into Ukrainian and Russian, so all of them indicate Ukrainian and Russian as their native languages.

 

Quality assurance

 

Rozmai introduced specialization programs for the translators back in 2010.

Most translations are proofread by outside experts who would then discuss the terminology or content mistakes with the translators. The results of these discussions are summarized in working bulletins that are periodically distributed among translators of the relevant groups and can be accessed at the intra-net base.

 

Rozmai has three in-house editors, also working as translators, whose primary function is to oversee the translation projects from the moment a text arrives in Rozmai’s e-mail and till the final proofreading.

Unless the client imposes very stringent deadlines, the standard process is as follows:

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• a manager discusses with the client the timeframe, sends the client a draft pro-forma invoice that indicates the deadline for delivery of the translation and its cost, and receives the client’s confirmation of the approval;

• an editor whose competence covers the received text reviews it to see whether it requires any clarifications with the client and assigns a translator or a group of translators. In some cases the editor may start by developing a glossary and creating a template, however Rozmai has been working with the subjects such as election legislation and monitoring for over 8 years so glossaries and TRADOS-compliant templates already exist in most areas.

• the translator(-s) translate the text and returns it to the editor for review.

• depending on the specificity and complexity of the text, as well as the timeframe, the editor may proofread it him/herself or ask the manager to submit it to an external editor who is usually not a linguist but an expert in a specific subject-matter, e.g., European law, gender studies, criminal procedures, digital media, etc. The expert will edit the text and send it back with tracked changes. This stage often includes an exchange of questions and comments between the expert, editor, and possibly translator, to clarify certain language or content-related issues.

• the editor performs the final proofreading and sends the text to the manager

• the translation is delivered to the client.

 

Interpretation quality checks are a standard operation for Rozmai. These are randomly performed by the senior interpreters who would listen to the simultaneous translation in progress unbeknownst to the interpreters, especially when these have a relatively short history of working relations with Rozmai.

 

The other kind of quality control is regularly performed by audio-recording the interpretation. Many CoE projects request that the discussions be recorded for further reports, so in 2010 Rozmai informed the interpreters that the technicians would record both the floor and the interpreters. The audio records are studied by the senior interpreters who discuss the details with the interpreters in question and generalize their comments. The latter are then distributed electronically, with no names mentioned, among all the interpreters.

 

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Technical quality

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Rozmai has an engineering unit with three technicians and a technical supervisor overseeing the park of equipment for simultaneous interpretation and sound systems. Its human and technical resources allow Rozmai to service four parallel conferences with up to 100 participants each or two conferences with up to 200 participants each where three languages are used. The equipment is both infra-red and FM-based and is made in Hungary, China, and Ukraine by a former defense factory that specializes in sophisticated electronics production. Rozmai technicians maintain regular contacts with the factory engineers who perform periodic checkups of the transmitters, amplifiers and receivers, and a major inspection and repair service once a year, usually in August.

 

Whenever possible, Rozmai technicians would set up the booths (ISO 4043 compliant), emitters, transmitters, and so on the night before the event. The standard requirement for the technicians is to be at the venue 90 minutes before the start so an extensive final equipment check can be conducted.

 

Clients often carry out their activities in other towns of Ukraine, away from Kyiv. When simultaneous translation is required, Rozmai brings along its light tabletop booths or a DWS INT2 portable set modeled after the tour-guide system that can usually service up to 20 participants.

 

Code of conduct

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Interpreters and translators should maintain high standards of conduct at all times to promote public confidence in the profession and the agency’s reputation. Rozmai follows the AIIC Code of professional ethics that is presented to every interpreter we work with at the beginning of our working relations. The AIIC Code has been supplemented with a number of provisions that we find professionally relevant, such as

• Interpreters should be as unobtrusive as possible and should not seek to draw inappropriate attention to themselves while performing their professional duties;

• When interpreting, interpreters should convey the speaker's emphasis and emotional tone only to the degree necessary to convey the speaker's messages, without reenacting or mimicking the speaker's tone, emotions, or dramatic gestures;

• Interpreters should not interject or reveal their own feelings, moods, attitudes, or beliefs while performing their professional duties.

 

Rozmai attaches special attention to confidentiality rules. The agency signs a standard non-disclosure agreement with every interpreter and translator that it hires at the beginning of his/her work, and additional agreements are signed when an interpreter is assigned to a new project. The agreements contain provisions on non-disclosure of information and working conditions related to Rozmai as well as those related to Rozmai’s clients.

The agreements also contain the general clauses, such as

• Interpreters and translators shall not publicly discuss, report, or offer an opinion concerning a matter in which they are or have been engaged, even when that information is not privileged or required by law to be confidential;

• Interpreters and translators shall be bound by the strictest secrecy, which must be observed towards all persons and with regard to all information disclosed in the course of the practice of the profession at any gathering not open to the public;

• Interpreters and translators shall refrain from deriving any personal gain whatsoever from confidential information they may have acquired in the exercise of their duties as interpreters and translators.

 

All of the interpreters and translators that Rozmai hires for its clients are experienced professionals with many years in the market and – most importantly – at least ten years of assignments within Rozmai’s framework contracts with the international organizations that regularly deal with such delicate matters as security, defense, strategic communications, or high-level policy talks. This experience has made the interpreters/translators real experts in the areas that require their knowledge and responsibility.

 

Media Experience

 

Our parent organization Rozmai NGO has worked in a number of media projects as a production company, so media has a special place in our hearts. Rozmai Translation Center has been involved in the efforts to set up a National Public Broadcaster of Ukraine since 2008 when the Council of Europe started its first media project in Ukraine. Since then, the agency has provided support to 5 media projects.

 

We have translated a number of documents, including draft laws, draft statutes of public broadcasters, regulations of the NPB Board and Supervisory Board, EU Directives, international guidelines, and textbooks dealing with standards of journalism, standards of media regulation, media monitoring of elections, local broadcasting, community media, etc.

 

Over the years, Rozmai has provided interpretation at over 100 media conferences, seminars, expert panels, and round tables organized for/by

• National Broadcasting Council of Ukraine

• State Committee for Radio and Television

• Parliamentary Committee for Freedom of Speech and Information Policy

• Ministry of Information Policy

• National Union of Journalists

• Independent Union of Journalists

• Independent Association of Broadcasters

• BBC

• IREX

• Internews Ukraine

• Media Law Institute

• Detector Media, and a number of other NGOs.