Five years have passed since the Ukrainian Association of Translators and Interpreters (UATI) was founded in February 2020. It has grown from 20 members in 2020 to 320 in 2025, despite the pandemic and Russia’s full-fledged war against Ukraine. The UATI general meeting held on 8 February was an important event that marked the beginning of a new stage in UATI’s development and growth. The board has grown from three directors to nine, and our members, both translators and interpreters, come from various educational backgrounds and areas of specialisation. The board’s strong motivation and bright ideas will hopefully result in faster growth and the development of the association.
On 24 February 2022, after two years of pandemic, lockdowns, and disruptions to daily life due to Covid, Russia began its full-scale war against Ukraine. As a result, these five years of existence have been challenging and forced us face unbelievably hard problems. We have had to keep going despite grief, displacement, uncertainty, fear, concerns, curfews, power cuts, funerals, new countries, dilemmas, hard choices, donations to the army, and many other things.
The support of the international community of translators and interpreters, mainly our fellow FIT member associations, has been extremely important for us. Thanks to the donations made to the UATI Support Fund, we managed to help over 200 Ukrainian translators and interpreters between March 2022 and March 2023 – including funds for evacuation, medications, food, supplies, and other necessities.
This fifth anniversary is the occasion to take stock of how we’ve done and, of course, draw conclusions. The ideas on which UATI was established are still relevant now, and we continue to move in the original direction we took. Chief among them: UATI strives to be a hub where translators and interpreters can network, so that they are not on their own in their professional lives. Our member forum has proved to be very efficient, and within a year, UATI members posted 73 job offers for their fellow members, engaged in lively discussions about translation and interpreting issues, and more.
UATI also launched two new online courses for our members’ professional development: Military Translation Bootcamp and First Steps in Translation Business.
In Ukraine, there is no official distinction between the professions of translator and interpreter. We considered it important to make this distinction official by creating two professional standards: one for translators and one for interpreters. After four years of drafting and discussion, the General Assembly officially adopted the standards at its meeting on 8 February 2025. The standards are meant to be a tool for translators and interpreters to organise their work, communicate professionally with clients, and know their rights and obligations, which will help raise the level of professionalism of the T&I industry in Ukraine.
Natalia Pavliuk, President, UATI