10 tactics is translated into 10 languages

A team of volunteers has been busy translating 10 tactics for turning information into action into Arabic, Burmese, French, Georgian, Hindi, Indonesian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai. These languages will all be included as subtitle options on the 10 tactics DVD, to be released in early December. 

VJ pixel, who works for the Laboratório Brasileiro de Cultura Digital in Brazil, was one of the first friends of Tactical Tech to offer to translate the film. VJ pixel says his main interests are video technologies, free culture and remix culture. He says: “I think it's important to show this film in Brazil. I'll use It to inspire people in the use of new technologies for activism.”

Taibah Istiqamah, who appears in the 10 tactics film, says she was inspired to translate the film into

Bahasa Indonesian because she wants to share it with rights advocates in her country. “It's an honour and a great pleasure to be among few people able to watch 10 tactics before everybody else!”, she says. Taibah has organised a screening in December for NGOs and bloggers in her hometown of Banjarmasin, the capital of South Kalimantan, with a student environment group she is part of.

Photographer, media trainer and activist, petitpor, has also translated the film - into Thai. Together with her friends and network, petitpor has established a distribution channel for citizen journalists in Thailand. She says the film will be useful for people who create content for this site: “The first time I heard these stories I felt so excited. I could feel hope and inspiration. I will carry [the film] with me wherever I go and show it to people, especially in places where we do media training. Some of my teacher friends have told me that they'd like to use this video in the classroom for students studying communications and in development studies.”

The translation for 10 tactics is being carried out using the free online service dotSUB. dotSUB is a web-based tool that enables video to be accessed in an open, collaborative, "wiki" type environment. It allows video content to be translated into multiple languages via subtitles rendered over the bottom of the video. These translated videos can be made available on any website, or the translation file can be downloaded to add to a DVD.

Using dotSUB, other languages will be made available on the 10 tactics website next year as people continue to translate the film. Already people are working on Bengali, Ewé, Traditional Chinese and Urdu. We encourage people to help with translation if they would like to make the film available in their local language.

Images Top: VJ pixel at the 2009 Info-activism camp in India. Photo by Frederick Norohna. Middle: Taibah as she appears in the animation in 10 tactics with Indonesian subtitles. Animation by Toby Newsome. Bottom: Photographer and activist, petitpor.