Job announcement: Arabic-English Translator for Meedan.net

Position Title: Translator – MENA Region

Reports to: Content and Community Manager

Location: Middle East

Number of Openings: 5

Opportunity Closes: 6 February 2009

Type of Employment: contract

Start Date: immediately

Term: to 30 June 2009

Work Schedule: part time – minimum 40 hours per month

Pay Rate: $300 for minimum hours outlined in contract

Payment Terms: via MoneyBookers.com or PayPal, within 10 business days of receipt of monthly detailed invoice, invoice to be received no later than 2 days after the end of the billing month

Job Requirements: See attached Translator_Job Description.pdf

Technical Requirements (to be supplied by the contractor):

· comfortable place to work that allows for good concentration

· personal computer with reliable access to the Internet

· standard word processing software

· Gmail account for communication, scheduling and file sharing

· Skype account for instant messaging

· MoneyBookers.com or PayPal account for receiving payments

Please Note: The interview process will include an English->Arabic or an Arabic->English translation test depending on experience.

To Respond: Please send email entitled “Translator – MENA” with cover letter and CV to gweyman [at] meedan.net.

Duties and Responsibilities

Primary Duties:

• Manages translation of home page events, comments and articles using the Meedan.net Content Management System and the IBM Transbrowser
• Does translations of other Meedan materials
• Reviews and approves submitted retranslations
• Monitors translation activity on the site
• Monitors comments on the site, responding quickly to remove any which infringe Meedan terms
• Provides feedback on the translation aspects of Meedan.net and the IBM Transbrowser

Other duties, as assigned:

• Helps to build Meedan’s online volunteer translation community
• Monitors and makes suggestions to improve Meedan’s Machine Translation
• Maintains and builds our English-Arabic glossaries
• Helps define Meedan’s editorial style guide in Arabic

• Cooperate with US, UK and other MENA staff to accomplish the above activities.
• Cooperate with US, UK and other MENA staff to develop and improve Meedan tools and system.
• Promote Meedan offline and online through media and blogger outreach, live events, etc.

Required Skills and Experience

• Previous translation experience within a work environment, preferably in a journalistic context
• Able to translate both Arabic to English and English to Arabic
• Able to write in Romanized Arabic and awareness of the main dialects of the region
• Excellent oral and written skills in both languages

• Native Arabic speaker
• Understanding of new media
• Basic computer skills (word processing)
• Ability to deliver on a deadline
• Able to represent and transmit the mission and values of Meedan to a broader audience.

Also desired:

• Prior experience working for an international organization or independently as part of a distributed team
• Prior experience working in new media
• General IT skills

Key Qualities

• Self motivated
• Excellent attention to detail
• Ability to work both independently and as part of a team
• Understanding of new and traditional media
• Strong social networker

Company Information:

Meadan is a nonprofit social technology company creating tools for informed online civic dialogue. We are multi-cultural, non-partisan, non-ideological, and supportive of diverse viewpoints. Our mission is to promote global understanding and tolerance by providing people with technologies to enable dialogue and the sharing of knowledge between English and Arabic speakers.

By allowing people to see, discuss, and share information from diverse viewpoints, we will promote better understanding between Arabic and English speakers around the world.

We are a 501©3 charitable organization based in San Francisco, California with operations in the US, UK and Egypt. For more information, please visit us at www.meedan.net.