About us

IN.TRA (Inclusive Translation for Community Engagement) was founded in 2021 by a group of seven students, with the help of several staff members, as part of the UNICORN program promoted by the European Observatory of Service-Learning in Higher Education. 

Although the seven founding members have since graduated and started their careers, our agency is still active today and continues to provide a variety of language services to the organizations with which we partner.  

One of the founding tenets of IN.TRA is service-learning. While this teaching methodology is quite common in North America, it has yet to fully establish itself as a primary teaching method in Italy, or Europe as a whole, despite its proven success and impact. Two professors at the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna (Professor Silvia Bernardini and Paolo Scampa) noticed the lack of service-learning based projects in the field of translation studies and decided to create a course dedicated to this methodology, which ultimately led to the founding of IN.TRA. 

Service-Learning is well-established at the University of Bologna, thanks to the long-standing commitment of Cinzia Albanesi and her team. For further information, see the  Service-Learning & Community Engagement project at the Department of Psychology:

https://site.unibo.it/servicelearning-labpsicom/it

At the base of IN.TRA lies the belief that translation is a bridge that connects different communities and cultures that at times can seem impossibly distant. Translation allows us to find infinite ways to connect the many realities of our world. IN.TRA aims to fulfil this role, to help connect students and communities to strengthen our social and humanitarian network through concrete actions. This is reflected in our logo, where the central dot connects a variety of different realities, each representing a separate microcosm of human experience represented by different colours and varying distance from the centre. Our mission is to be a connecting force in a heterogenous world, facilitating dialogue between communities and cultures using the skills acquired through the Master's in Specialized Translation. 

Our logo was designed by UNIBO student Martina Quaquarelli who volunteered her time and expertise to support our initiative.