When a Profession Is Built Together

Reflecting on Dr Joseph Musabyimana and Ibrahim Ndagijimana’s session about Rwanda’s interpreting community

What happens when a community needs interpreters, but the formal structures normally associated with a profession are still being developed?

There may be no established training route, national register or consistent system of professional standards. The number of experienced practitioners may be small, while the need for communication access stretches across education, healthcare, justice, public services, media and community life.

In that situation, waiting for a complete professional system to appear is not an option. Deaf and Deafblind people still need access, families still need to communicate and public services still need to become more inclusive.

During The Together Conference 2026, Dr Joseph Musabyimana and Ibrahim Ndagijimana shared how Rwanda’s interpreting community has responded through organisation, mentorship, advocacy, partnership and shared responsibility.

Their session, Bridging Voices, Building Futures: Lessons Learned from Rwanda’s Interpreting Community, showed that professional development does not always begin with a university course or regulatory framework. Sometimes it begins with people recognising a community need and deciding to build the necessary structures together.

From sign language knowledge to interpreting practice

Joseph explained that, before the current professional network began to develop, there were people in Rwanda who knew and used sign language but had not received formal preparation for interpreting.

Knowing a sign language and being able to interpret between languages are not the same thing. Interpreting also requires ethical decision-making, message analysis, professional conduct, preparation and an understanding of the settings in which the work takes place.

The organised development of Rwanda’s interpreting community began around 2020. People with sign language knowledge were brought together for training, coaching and professional development. In 2023, the Rwanda National Union of Sign Language Interpreters was formally established.

The work included strengthening interpreters’ professional identity and helping them understand that they held an important role within the community. It also involved developing organisational leadership, committees and systems through which interpreters could support one another and contribute to the direction of the profession.

This is an important distinction. A profession is not created simply by giving individuals a technical skill. It also needs shared expectations, ethical values, leadership, community relationships and a sense of collective responsibility.

Mentorship as a practical route into the work

Mentorship and peer support have been central to Rwanda’s approach.

Experienced interpreters are paired with less experienced colleagues during real assignments. The experienced practitioner can observe, coach and support the developing interpreter as they begin applying their learning within professional settings.

This creates a bridge between classroom-style training and the reality of the work. A new interpreter can see how an experienced colleague prepares, communicates with participants, manages uncertainty and responds when an assignment does not go as expected.

Joseph described this peer coaching as one of the main methods used to help interpreters grow. The approach also allows existing professional knowledge to remain within the community and be passed to the next group of practitioners.

Mentorship does not remove the need for formal education or assessment. However, where established courses are limited, structured peer support can offer a practical way to begin developing competence and professional identity.

It also challenges the idea that experienced interpreters complete their own development and then work only for themselves. Their knowledge becomes part of a wider professional resource.

Professionalism is more than arriving and signing

Joseph was clear that interpreting is not simply about attending an assignment and producing signs.

The training provided through the union also considers professional ethics, values and behaviour. Interpreters need to understand confidentiality, neutrality, accuracy and how their conduct affects both the people involved and the reputation of the wider profession.

These shared expectations are particularly important while a professional network is still growing. When service providers have little previous experience of working with interpreters, one interaction may shape how they understand the role in future.

An interpreter’s conduct can therefore affect more than one assignment. It may influence whether an organisation trusts interpreting services, prepares properly next time or recognises the importance of booking a suitably trained professional.

This does not mean individual interpreters should carry responsibility for an entire profession without support. It means professional development needs to include the values and judgement behind the work, not only language production.

The Deaf community is not separate from professional development

One of the strongest themes in the presentation was the relationship between interpreters and the communities they serve.

Joseph described the Deaf community as an active part of developing interpreting practice. Deaf people contribute language knowledge, feedback, practical opportunities and an understanding of the communication barriers that need to be addressed.

This prevents the profession from being designed only by interpreters or service organisations. Interpreting exists because people need to communicate across language and access barriers. Deaf community knowledge therefore needs to remain central to training, standards and decision-making.

The work has also included cooperation with the Rwanda National Union of the Deaf, the Rwanda Organisation of Persons with Deafblindness and wider organisations of persons with disabilities.

These partnerships have supported training, advocacy, workshops and the development of interpreting networks. They have also helped raise awareness of Rwandan Sign Language and the need for interpreting services within the wider community.

The relationship is not one-directional. Interpreters support access, but Deaf and Deafblind communities also shape the knowledge, purpose and development of interpreters.

Collective responsibility instead of individual survival

In some professional systems, development can become an individual task.

The practitioner pays for their own training, finds their own mentor, builds their own network and manages difficulties alone. Those with stronger finances, contacts or confidence may progress more easily than others.

The Rwandan model described in the session placed greater emphasis on collective responsibility. Joseph explained that everyone involved has a role in supporting the organisation and the development of the community.

This includes experienced and developing interpreters, Deaf and Deafblind people, disability organisations, partners and public institutions.

Collective responsibility does not mean that individual standards no longer matter. Each interpreter still needs to develop their own skills and behave professionally. It means those individuals are not expected to build the entire pathway alone.

The organisation provides structure. Experienced interpreters offer mentorship. Communities create opportunities for learning and feedback. Partner organisations provide resources, training and advocacy. Leadership groups help the work continue.

This approach may be particularly visible in a newer professional network, but it raises useful questions for longer-established professions too.

Have we become so focused on individual registration, CPD and competition for work that we have lost some sense of collective development?

Building leadership alongside interpreting skills

The session also highlighted the importance of leadership development.

A professional organisation needs more than skilled practitioners. It needs people who can organise training, develop partnerships, advocate with government, manage committees and plan for the future.

Joseph described a leadership structure within the Rwanda National Union of Sign Language Interpreters that includes committees and subcommittees working together to govern the organisation.

This distributes responsibility and helps prevent the whole profession from depending on one or two people.

Leadership development can also create professional routes beyond direct interpreting. Experienced practitioners may contribute as mentors, trainers, organisers, advocates or advisers.

These roles can help the profession become more sustainable. They allow knowledge gained through practice to influence training, policy and future services rather than disappearing when someone reduces or stops their interpreting work.

For established interpreting and translation communities, this is a useful reminder that leadership should also be taught and passed on. People do not automatically know how to run an association, build partnerships or represent a profession simply because they are experienced interpreters.

Tactile interpreting as a right

The development of tactile sign language interpreting was another important part of the presentation.

Joseph explained that interpreters with knowledge of visual sign language received additional training to support Deafblind people through tactile communication.

More than 23 tactile sign language interpreters had been trained, although the number remained limited in relation to community need. Further work was also needed to support Deafblind children who had not yet developed a consistent tactile communication system.

Joseph described access to tactile interpreting as a human right, not a favour.

That statement is important because specialist services are sometimes treated as optional additions. If there are only a small number of people requiring a particular form of access, organisations may consider the cost or preparation disproportionate.

A rights-based approach begins somewhere else. Deafblind people have the same right to participate in public services and community life. The responsibility is therefore to develop the communication support needed to make that participation possible.

Training tactile interpreters is one part of the solution. Deafblind children and adults may also need access to communication education, appropriate services and professionals who understand that tactile communication cannot simply be replaced by a more familiar method.

Interpreting across essential services

Ibrahim described the range of settings in which Rwanda’s interpreters are working.

In education, interpreters support communication during lessons, examinations and interactions between teachers and students. In healthcare, they assist with explanations of medical conditions and treatment.

In justice settings, interpreters support Deaf litigants and witnesses. In the media, they translate public broadcasts and help make information available to Deaf audiences. Within governance and community meetings, they support Deaf people to participate directly in discussions and decisions.

These are not secondary services. They affect education, health, justice, access to information and participation in public life.

Ibrahim connected interpreting with Rwanda’s wider development of public and digital services. He explained that more than 200 government services had already been digitised, creating both opportunities and further access needs.

Moving a service online does not automatically make it accessible. Deaf people may still need signed information, interpretation and support to understand or use the service. Digital development therefore increases the need to consider language access from the beginning rather than adding it later.

Progress alongside continuing challenges

The session recognised significant progress, but did not suggest that every problem had been solved.

Ibrahim reported that Rwanda had around 80 interpreters, with a much larger group having received some training or capacity-building in Rwandan Sign Language. This remains a small interpreting workforce for the range of services and communities requiring access.

He identified several continuing challenges:

• a shortage of trained interpreters

• inconsistent professional standards

• low remuneration

• limited awareness among service providers

• emotional fatigue

• limited use of technology

These challenges are connected. Low pay can make it harder to recruit and retain people. A shortage of interpreters may lead organisations to use anyone who can sign, which can make consistent standards harder to establish.

Limited awareness among service providers may mean interpreters receive poor preparation, unsuitable working conditions or little recognition of the complexity of their role. Emotional fatigue becomes harder to manage when the workforce is small and the same practitioners are repeatedly asked to cover demanding work.

Technology may improve access to training and remote services, but it requires suitable equipment, connectivity and knowledge.

Recognising progress does not mean hiding the gaps. In fact, naming those gaps clearly can help direct the next stage of professional development.

Learning across countries without copying blindly

In March 2026, Rwanda hosted a conference organised by the African Federation of Sign Language Interpreters. Joseph described it as the first conference of its kind in Africa, bringing together more than 200 people and participants from different continents.

This created an opportunity to exchange knowledge across countries and interpreting communities.

However, Joseph also stressed that sign languages are connected to local communities and cultures. A professional model developed in one country cannot simply be copied into another without considering the local language, history, institutions and needs.

International learning is most useful when it creates questions rather than assumptions.

What part of another country’s training model could work here?

Which professional standard is based on a universal ethical principle, and which reflects one particular system?

How might a mentorship approach need to change in a rural or multilingual context?

Who needs to be involved locally before a new system is introduced?

Learning across borders should not mean treating one established profession as the model and everyone else as trying to catch up. Different communities may have developed solutions that longer-established systems have overlooked.

What can established professions learn?

Practitioners working within established registration systems may initially see the Rwandan context as very different from their own.

The UK, for example, has recognised qualifications, professional registers, associations, university programmes and established routes for CPD.

Yet many of the underlying questions remain familiar.

1. Do newly qualified interpreters receive enough supported practice?

2. Are experienced practitioners expected to mentor others without recognition or resources?

3. How closely are Deaf communities involved in setting professional priorities?

4. Do interpreters understand how to contribute to leadership, advocacy and organisational work?

5. Is specialist development, including Deafblind interpreting, available across the country?

6. Are professional standards accompanied by practical support, or does the individual interpreter carry most of the responsibility?

A profession can have many formal structures and still leave people isolated. It can have a register without enough mentorship, CPD requirements without suitable learning opportunities and ethical guidance without spaces to discuss how it applies in practice.

Rwanda’s experience reminds us that professional strength comes not only from having systems, but from the relationships and shared effort that make those systems work.

What does this mean for translators?

The session focused on sign language interpreting and tactile interpreting, but several of its lessons are also relevant to translators.

Translation professions also need training routes, shared quality standards, mentorship and community involvement. Deaf translators need opportunities to develop their language, technical, ethical and production skills through more than isolated project work.

Digital government services and public information create a growing need for sign language translation. If more public services move online, accessible signed information needs to be included within that development.

Translators can also contribute to terminology, public awareness, educational resources and the documentation of national sign languages.

As with interpreting, translation standards should be shaped with the communities who will use the finished work. A technically polished video is not useful if the language, format or content does not meet the audience’s needs.

The Rwandan experience shows the value of treating language access as a community and institutional responsibility rather than a service that individual professionals are expected to create alone.

What are we passing on?

The theme for The Together Conference 2026 was Pick It Up, Pass It On.

Joseph and Ibrahim’s presentation offered a very practical example of that theme.

Experienced interpreters pass on skills through mentoring. Deaf communities pass on language, cultural knowledge and feedback. Organisations pass on opportunities, resources and leadership. International networks pass on ideas that can be considered and adapted locally.

What is passed on is not only technical knowledge. It includes professional values, confidence, identity and a belief that the interpreting community can organise and speak collectively.

The session also reminds us that passing something on involves responsibility. Poor habits, inconsistent standards and narrow ideas about professionalism can be passed on just as easily as useful knowledge.

Mentorship therefore needs to be reflective. Experienced practitioners should not only teach new colleagues to do what they have always done. They should be willing to explain their decisions, question existing practices and learn from the person they are supporting.

Building futures through shared purpose

The theme for The Together Conference 2027 is New Insights, Shared Purpose.

Rwanda’s interpreting community shows what shared purpose can achieve when people work across roles and organisations.

Perhaps you are involved in developing interpreting or translation within an emerging professional network. You may be building a mentorship scheme, a Deaf-led training programme, a professional association or a specialist pathway for Deafblind interpreting.

You might have experience of professional development in a rural, multilingual or under-resourced setting. You may be researching how national policy, digital services or community organisations affect language access.

You may also be working within an established profession and have identified something that newer or differently structured communities could teach us.

The Call for Papers for The Together Conference 2027 opens on Monday 5 October 2026. You do not need to decide whether your proposal belongs in the live programme or the extended conference. Submit your idea and the review panel will consider where accepted contributions fit best.

Poster submissions will also be welcomed for developing projects, training models, professional networks, early findings and practice-based reflections.

A professional future is not built only by the people who already hold formal authority. It grows when communities, practitioners and organisations recognise that they each have something to contribute and something to learn.

Using this article for unstructured CPD

You may wish to reflect on one or more of the following questions:

1. Which professional structures do you currently rely on in your own work?

2. What might your practice look like if those systems did not exist?

3. How did you move from language knowledge into professional interpreting or translation practice?

4. Who provided mentoring or peer support during that transition?

5. What knowledge could you now pass on to someone earlier in their career?

6. How closely are Deaf and Deafblind communities involved in shaping training and professional standards in your context?

7. Is mentorship treated as an essential part of professional development or an informal favour?

8. What leadership skills does the profession need beyond direct interpreting and translation?

9. Are specialist services, including tactile interpreting, available consistently in your area?

10. What pressures are created by interpreter shortages, low pay or limited service-provider awareness?

11. Does digital service development in your country include sign language access from the beginning?

12. What could your professional community learn from a differently structured interpreting network?

13. Is there a project, model or experience that could become a proposal or poster for The Together Conference 2027?

A short professional reflection on these questions could be recorded as part of your unstructured CPD.