IN.TRA 2025: reflections on, and experiences and impact of, service-learning at the Department of Interpreting and Translation

IN.TRA 2025: Service-Learning in Translation at UNIBO  

May 16, 2025 marked the conclusion of the annual service-learning project of the University of Bologna’s Department of Interpreting and Translation. 

The event featured several inspiring speakers, including University of Bologna Rector Giovanni Molari, Professor Cinzia Albanesi from the “Renzo Canestrari” Department of Psychology, and Professor Josephat Gitonga, who joined us online from the University of Nairobi, Kenya. But the real protagonists were our community partners and our students. 

IN.TRA’s 2024/2025 community partners were DiaLogos, a social cooperative based and operating in Forlì, represented by Francesca Abbiati, and Cittadinanza Onlus, based in Rimini but operating in several countries of the global South, including Kenya, represented by Alessandro Latini. Francesca and Alessandro introduced their organizations and shared an overview of their main activities. Students then took the floor to present the work they carried out during the past semester, reflecting on their experiences with service-learning. 

Martina Simonotti described the project carried out with Cittadinanza Onlus, which involved translating two specialized reports into Italian and Swahili as part of a joint effort with the University of Nairobi.  

Several students then described the projects carried out with DiaLogos, IN.TRA’s main community partner for the year. DiaLogos supports migrants in Forlì through services such as social housing, cultural mediation and Italian language courses. As such, the organization required comprehensive linguistic services–more than simple translation–including workflow design, documentation management and training.  

Anna Vignali represented the teams that provided linguistic consulting to DiaLogos. Their tasks included developing glossaries on diabetes and inclusive language, creating a tailored workflow, designing a data protection protocol for handling sensitive documents, and compiling translation memories using both existing and new materials.  

Another key component was the training provided to DiaLogos staff, presented by Carol Gabriele. Students developed and delivered training sessions on the use of ChatGPT as a translation tool and the open-source CAT tool MateCat. A second group of students developed two multilingual resources were also created to support immigrant families navigating the difficult bureaucratic process of filing taxes, which further underlines the project’s practical social impact. Other students helped organize and facilitate cultural initiatives with beneficiaries of the services DiaLogos provides, namely a book club and a collaborative translation workshop with multilingual groups of adolescents. 

Bridging past and future, Maria Guanciale presented a new partnership, which started during the semester and will continue next year, with Ma Petite Planète, a French environmental awareness app. This team of students localized the summer edition of the app’s community engagement campaign. 

Beatrice Nania then outlined the efforts of the internal team responsible for IN.TRA’s communications and social media; beyond overseeing the social media accounts of the organization, the group also localized IN.TRA’s new website into multiple languages. 

To close the event, Professor Silvia Bernardini, the course coordinator, offered final reflections on the benefits of service-learning, emphasizing how service-learning projects foster not only global citizenship through community engagement, but also the development of essential professional skills.  

As the academic year concludes and students prepare for graduation, IN.TRA will pause for the summer to coordinate next year’s projects in anticipation of welcoming a new student cohort and new community partners in the fall.

You can see the full list of work groups with the names of each participating student here.