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>> Carolyn Mandelker: Sophie about a year and a half ago President Reoch and I asked you
to conduct quite an extensive survey of all the people... talking to all the people
throughout the world who had anything to do with translation and multi-lingualism at all,
just trying to get a complete picture of this very complex operation in our mandala.
And you conducted a beautiful survey, having individual interviews with people
over a period of months and then came up with a report.
Can you tell us what that experience was like for you
and perhaps some key findings from your survey?
>> Sophie Leger: Sure. It was a very touching experience actually,
because what I found out was very, very dedicated, passionate people
who had been giving a lot of their life to do a lot of very unsung and invisible work,
which was actually essential in our Sangha and with very little support at times;
and who were keeping doing that work with tremendous generosity.
And so that was very inspiring for me to talk to all of them
and also sometimes feel how difficult it had been for them
and their frustration and discouragement at times.
And I also realised that there was a lot of...
they were dealing with a lot of challenges in our Sangha,
especially in terms of the lack of structure, difficulty in communication.
For example they would receive requests for translations for very different sources;
they had to translate very quickly a really big amount of work;
and so that was a very challenging situation they work with.
And but very little of them were complaining or they were just...
I was struck by how courageous and cheerful they were.
>>CM: I think that's why we created a position called Director of Multi-lingual Development
on Kalapa Executive to actually express our commitment to truly being
a multi-lingual global community and have somebody focus their beam on that.
So that any time there’s a communication that comes out of the center of mandala
or our newsletters, or pretty much everything should be thought of from that point of view.
>> SL: Well actually my first step will be to reconnect with all of these translators and to find out...
because the survey was done about a year and a half ago,
so to find out if there has been any progress since and what they are feeling now;
and where we're are at at this point;
so I feel a very deep need to reconnect with everybody
and establish a communication and trust.
And another step is that we are going to be hiring a European,
not a European, but a Translation Coordinator and that person will be based in Europe
and will do more of the groundwork and direct support to translators.
Whereas I'm going to, in addition to doing this,
I'm also going to try to do some work in terms of raising the awareness in the general Sangha
about the fact that we are multi-lingual community,
that the Shambhala dharma is practiced and communicated in over 20 different languages.
And that, like you say, it’s not just a matter of translating the English
so that everyone can understand; but it’s viewing ourselves
as a community of very many cultures and very many different languages,
and viewing this as a richness.
>> CM: We're very excited to have this position altogether and to have you in it.
>> SL: Well I am really excited about discovering what it will really be,
because right now it's mainly conceptual,
and you know I have talked to people; but I haven't started to work on it really so, yeah.