National Award for PPL Students
On Wednesday 14th November, student representatives, Orla Condra and Daniel Cabeza Campillo, accompanied by Dr Carlos de Pablos Ortega from PPL, were awarded Runner-up to the Threlford Cup, receiving a rare Special Commendation Award for his SAAM Project (Subtitling for Access to Audio-visual Media). The commendation was for making a Significant Contribution to Fostering the Study of Languages. The project, designed and lead by Dr de Pablos Ortega, teams up student volunteers with charities and NGOs to translate and subtitle their film clips.
The Ceremony held at the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIoL) was held at the Law Society in Chancery Lane, London. The event was a celebration of initiatives and projects, which promote languages and recognises originality and inspiration in the field of language teaching and learning.
The certificate was presented by, Mr Richard Hardie, President of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. The executive leader of the CIoL, Anne Carlisle, remarked that “the SAAM project provides invaluable assistance to charities, whilst at the same time providing practical opportunities for students to use their languages, while engaging with national and international communities. The committee was particularly impressed by the content and the impact that it had”.
Since the start of the project in 2016, SAAM has recruited 61 student volunteers and has helped 5 different charities and non-profits. In 2017, SAAM provided $15,000 worth of savings for a USA based charity, Online Child Protection Toolkit. SAAM continues to help the organisation, working in developing countries. The videos have been viewed over 200 times in 16 different countries as diverse as, USA, Liberia, Germany, Thailand, Ecuador and the UK, effectively disseminating information and improving charity workers’ understanding of child abuse. This year, the project has recruited 34 volunteers, 8 of whom are collaborating from Universidad de Alcalá in Madrid (Spain).
