CITS MA Students Participate in an International Project to Develop an Accessible Environment

The Caspian Higher School of Interpreting and Translation takes part in various projects. This year, a special emphasis was placed on the development of an inclusive environment at the Russian and international level: CITS took part in the forum “Strong Ideas for the New Time” with a project on sign languages. Besides, the staff of our school and the Faculty of Foreign Languages of ASU underwent advanced training in the field of sign language at the Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU) for the further development of the project on sign language translation in Astrakhan.

Work in this direction is still in progress: CITS MA students have made a significant contribution to the international project for the development of an accessible environment “Team Special”, having translated the documentary “Movement by movement” about the difficult life of wheelchair athlete Molly Hale. Despite health limitations, Molly is Executive Director of “Ability Production”, has 5th Aikido Dan and is a member of the working group for people with disabilities of the International Aikido Federation. This film will be shown on Russian channels, conferences and distributed through various media as motivating and educational material.

Ksenia Dmitrieva, MA student in translation, shared her opinion on participation in the project: “For me, participation in this project is a valuable experience and a huge responsibility. The film itself was challenging due to the topics that were raised. Difficulties in everyday life and obstacles in personal relationships of people with disabilities are usually not spoken about. This is a kind of taboo, since it is difficult to understand for those people who do not face such problems. However, I believe that this topic is extremely important for all of us. Such films help to form the right attitude towards such people and develop an environment in which everyone will be comfortable, as well as help people with disabilities to find self-fulfillment.”