UNIMALNEWS | Jakarta - Muhammad Iqbal, an Indonesian language lecturer at FKIP Universitas Malikussaleh, was selected as one of 46 translators for the children's book translation project. UNESCO, the Global Digital Library, and the Language Development and Development Agency have set an ambitious goal for 2024: to translate 5,000 children's books from other languages into Indonesian and other regional languages. They conducted a workshop on publishing children's picture books in regional languages, which is scheduled for December 4-8, 2023, in Jakarta.

According to Iqbal, the goal of this effort is to create and distribute children's storybooks on an international scale, which will then be translated into regional languages such as Acehnese. This translation process is designed not only to strengthen the translator's skills in translating children's stories into regional languages but also to produce high-quality translations that will be published on the Global Digital Library website.

According to Medcom.id, E. Aminudin Aziz, the head of the Language Development and Development Agency, stated in the Regional Language Translation Workshop in the context of UNESCO facilitation that this workshop was designed to provide intensive training so that they could be more proficient and skilled in translating storybooks that accommodate the literacy needs of children.

Iqbal noted that the training provided was extremely beneficial for him and the future translators of children's stories in gaining the insight and skills necessary to produce great works in regional languages. "This activity demonstrates the commitment of national and UN educational, scientific, and cultural institutions to the preservation of regional languages." "The multiculturalism promoted by UNESCO and other global institutions continues to hope that local languages, as local geniuses, will not disappear but rather develop and become more popular in society," Iqbal said.[sis/tkf]