Posted on February 22, 2023

Celebrating Black History Month: Q & A With iVoiceAfrica

Every year since February 1969, when Black History Month was conceptualized, African and African Americans all over the world celebrate our roots, our culture, and our achievements. At InEvent, we have recognized our clients, partners, and global community throughout this month via our marketing channels. 

As a global company providing world-class technology to a wide market, our goal with partnerships is to help companies increase their revenue, giving them visibility with our global client base and followers who might need extra services for their events. In today’s blog post, we sat down for a chat with Abigail Chiazor, Head of Marketing Communications at iVoiceAfrica, one of our certified partners on our Event Market. 

Here’s how it went. 

Question: Introduce yourself

Answer: 

My name is Abigail, I’m the head of Marketing communications for iVoiceAfrica. 

Question: Tell us about iVoice Africa? How has your work promoted multilingualism in the Black community?

Answer: 

iVoiceAfrica started as a voiceover company and has expanded into a translation and localisation company, offering solutions in all African languages.

In a continent with over two thousand languages and seven thousand dialects spoken, we saw a need for ease and simplicity in communication for African and international businesses, connecting them with African markets through localization and delivering the most satisfactory customer experience in any African language. 

Our services range from interpretation, dubbing, subtitling, translation, African language learning, transcription, multilingual email and chat support, bilingual customer service, digital marketing, and African language consultations. 

The language and cultural diversity in Africa influence how individuals of different backgrounds interact with each other, because language is more than just a string of words, it is an expression of the culture, beliefs, history, and identity of a people. Unfortunately, in our world today, lots of African languages are becoming extinct, the A.I. solutions that currently exist lack enough data and accuracy, causing a lot of miscommunication, and not too many Africans are seeing a potential career in the localization industry, thereby learning their languages and preserving our culture for generations unborn. These are where our efforts in preserving multilingualism come in.

• We are creating an easy way to provide job opportunities for Africans in localization. iVoiceAfrica is building a job search website that will expose and connect freelancers
• With clients that can advance their careers, give them exposure, and earn them some money. This website will also help companies to connect with African creatives to transform their businesses with our cutting-edge technology. Be the first to access this website when it launches; join the waitlist now.  We also have a community where we assist African language professionals to leverage their skills and connect them to opportunities where they can monetise these skills. Click on this link to join our community. 
• Partnered with other Language Service Providers to improve African language data.
• Our services ensure we use native/professionals who understand the cultures prevalent in these African countries and respect cultural values. These professionals are deeply rooted in these communities. They are conversant with the latest trends, slang, and lingo to avoid gaffes being offensive or insensitive because of the difference in culture, context, values, and morals, amongst others. 

Question: How does iVoiceAfrica contribute to the events management industry?

Answer: 

Over the years, our contribution to the events management industry has been to overcome language barriers and facilitate communication with our on-site and video remote interpretation service. Our team are natives who are certified professional interpreters with ample experience in online events, international conferences, business meetings among others. Our interpretation service supports all African languages with specialization in all industries ranging from medical, financial, technical etc. 

Having completed over 1000 jobs with 100% success rate, we have a track record in delivering simultaneous and consecutive remote interpretations using offline tools. We have worked with different clients from all over the world to provide seamless interpretation service for their audience in different African languages. We have worked with Elevation church to create a live french interpretation service for audiences in Cameroon in some of their conferences. We also get to work with our clients from the event management industry by supporting their local customers with chat support in several African languages, particularly during the pandemic. Our partnership with inEvent has helped us achieve this. 

Kindly visit our website for more information & testimonials. 

Question: What really drives you?

Answer: 

Nelson Mandela once said “if you talk to man in the language he understands, that goes to his head, if you talk to him in his language that goes to his heart.”

Language shouldn’t be a barrier to communication, even in business. iVoiceAfrica is passionate about the uniqueness of each African Language, and we are particular about preserving these languages to reduce the extinction of African languages to the barest minimum; delivering language solutions that enhance customers’ experience and bridge communication gaps.

We understand that connecting with people is the heart of any business strategy, which is why our processes are centered around creating a connection that enhances the value of your products/services to your African consumers.

Question: When you hear Black History Month, what comes to your mind?

Answer: 

For me, Black History Month is a way of commemorating important people, events and things in the history of Africa. In a synopsis, it’s the month of celebrating African history.

Question: Do you think there is enough being done to recognise black voices? What can be done better?

Answer: 

It is quite evident that a lot has been done and is still being done to recognize black voices, but is this enough? I don’t think so. We still have clear cases of racism, stereotypes, segregation of different sorts, misinterpretation of black history, and whatnot. Up until now, some people still think that black history is all about slavery, but in the real sense, our history is more than just slavery. 

There’s still a lot to be done to promote black voices to knock down racial inequality. 

We have so much more to offer than our stories of survival, we are inherently valuable and deserve equity because we’re humans just like every other race. 

We need momentum fueled by Black activism to push Black voices to the forefront of social justice. We must work towards focusing on Black voices at all levels of social change. This will in turn reduce discrimination and violation from law enforcement against black people, and inappropriate discipline of black children. 

Focusing on black voices is an advanced solution to the race-based stress and trauma on young black people. There’s a need to amplify black voices to foster a more accurate understanding of Black history and Black contributions to society, working toward a non-discriminatory, truthful educational system.

Question: A book that was impossible for me to put down…

Answer:

48 laws of power by Robert Greene was that book. 

I call this book a practical reality because every law written in the book was linked with real life examples and backed by logical interpretation, proof and history.

That book is such a powerful and intriguing book. 

Question: Your best piece of advice to young black men and women?

Answer: 

My advice to young black men and women is that they’re enough and they should aim high and never get discouraged, irrespective of what other people think. 

I hope you enjoyed this interview session as much as we did. Are you looking for a partnership to give your products or services visibility and increased revenue this 2023 like iVoiceAfrica? The EventMarket community was created for you. Join the community today! Got any more questions or need more information? Feel free to reach out to our Partnerships lead, Nathalie Pinzon (nathalie.p@inevent.com)