NEWS RELEASE
September, 2017
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Mannheim/Jacksonville, September 2017) At flexword Translators & Consultants we followed the path of Hurricane Irma with deep concern and sympathy, especially since our US headquarters are in Jacksonville. Our team has been touched by the plight of people in its path, particularly in the Caribbean. This prompted the management at flexword, an international language service provider, to pledge a donation. Two percent of its October turnover will go to Cuban hurricane victims.
As Irma was approaching the Florida Keys and coast, our site in Jacksonville, Florida, prepared for the natural disaster and its possible impact. We evacuated the site, and staff sheltered in safe places to wait out the storm and its aftermath. The thorough preparations we made, coupled with the extraordinary commitment shown by our staff, enabled flexword USA to provide a continuous service throughout. The scale of devastation left by the hurricane is gradually becoming clear. This category 4 to 5 hurricane, with winds of up to 250 kilometres an hour and waves many metres high, left a trail of destruction across a whole swathe of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast.
On Sunday 10 September 2017, the full force of Hurricane Irma hit the north-east coast of Cuba, with devastating consequences for this Caribbean island and its inhabitants. Initially, there was great media interest in the hurricane. The damage in the eastern Caribbean, and possible route the storm would take towards Florida, were discussed at great length. Yet few details were reported of the scale of destruction in Cuba. Cuba’s east coast had already been hit by Hurricane Matthew the previous year, meaning many people are now seeing their lives in ruins for the second time in as many years. Goranka Miš-Čak, flexword’s founder and Managing Director, explains how her team reacted: “Now that the public are beginning to lose interest in this issue, and the initial appeals for donations are fading from our minds, we feel it’s important to draw attention to the fate of people in the most disadvantaged parts of the Caribbean. All of flexword watched developments in Cuba carefully, and empathised with our colleague from Cuba whose family was directly affected by the fallout from the hurricane. Our team came up with the idea of a corporate donation: a proportion of our October turnover will go to hurricane victims in Cuba.”
The effects of Hurricane Irma will be felt in Cuba for a long time to come, as it tore down homes, destroyed harvests and laid waste to whole villages. Rebuilding the island will be a gargantuan task for its population. Werner Arnautovic, Head of Strategic Business Development, explains: “flexword’s donation is intended to support the people most dependent on outside assistance. Our colleague from Cuba will use her contacts and local knowledge to ensure that our donation reaches the people in greatest need.”
About flexword Translators & Consultants:
flexword Translators & Consultants, whose head office is in Mannheim, is one of Germany’s leading professional language service providers. Its Managing Director, Goranka Miš-Čak, is a qualified translator, who founded the company in 1992. From very small to large-scale projects, from single-language to multilingual, from long-term projects to express and overnight translations, over 1,000 clients from a wide variety of industries choose flexword as a full service provider based on its core expertise in the translation services sector. The company was one of the first translation providers to be certified to EN 15038 for translation services (successor standard: EN ISO 17100). This makes flexword the top provider among the high-quality language service providers. The owner-managed group with offices in Germany, the US, the UK and Serbia boasts a global network of more than 6,500 qualified specialist translators, proofreaders and interpreters. As such, flexword can provide translations exclusively from qualified mother-tongue specialists with many years of professional experience. flexword is a member of the British Chamber of Commerce, the “Metropolregion Rhein-Neckar” public-private partnership model and is also a training enterprise for the Rhine-Neckar Chamber of Industry and Commerce. For over 20 years, flexword has been synonymous with top-quality translations, completing all assignments competently and on time while showing flexibility and focusing on the customer’s needs.
Press contact
Amélie Quasthoff
PR & Communications Manager
Tel.: +49 621 39 74 78 – 0 | Fax: +49 621 39 74 78 -10
amelie.quasthoff@flexword.de
PDF download here: Flexword supports Hurricane Irma victims
