Due to my multi-faceted profile and my teaching background, the French Ministry of Education selected me for the Spanish Assistants Program and in 2010, after graduating, I spent a school year teaching in two secondary schools in Laval, Pays de la Loire. This experience outside of Argentina helped me to continue to broaden my outlook on the world and to prepare myself to work in international contexts. It was the first academic experience abroad and one more trip of the many to come.
The next destination was Buenos Aires, where I currently reside. I came here to work as a conference interpreter, but also to work at the Foundation for Women's Studies and Research (FEIM, in Spanish), one of the most important NGOs in gender equality and women's empowerment in Argentina and Latin America. This experience was defining and a gateway to international agencies and development cooperation. Here, I found my specialty and went deeper into issues that had always been important to me. From FEIM, I worked in translation, interpretation, proofreading and adaptation of texts for projects with UNAIDS, UNWOMEN, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNDP and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These years helped me to develop in high-level contexts, with autonomy and greater pressure, but working as a team.
In 2016, I launched myself into the world of independent work. Since then, my client portfolio has grown thanks to my interpersonal skills and my active participation in civil society organizations. It has included national and international NGOs, government institutions, intergovernmental agencies, private companies and individuals. The projects continue to focus on gender, sexual and reproductive health, migration, environment, youth leadership, but also now on arts, social sciences, marketing, education, among others. I had high-profile translation work, such as art exhibitions by Jean Paul Gaultier and Guillermo Kuitca with the Fondation Cartier; an art and activism campaign by Amplifier; a gender and migration manual, the Soy Migrante campaign and the final document of the UN Conference on South-South Cooperation for IOM Argentina; a training manual on young leadership by GOJoven; guidance on gender in the judicial field for Vital Voices Global Partnership through the Umbrella company; and a compilation of articles on Foucauldian theory. In interpretation, my participation in the presentation of a report by the Guttmacher Institute and The Lancet magazine in the Argentine Senate and in the side event to the W20 in the framework of the G20 organized by the Dutch Embassy, among others, are highlights of my career so far.
Amid so much work, I also made room for continuous training and some teaching experiences. Between 2014 and 2019, the Colegio de Traductores Públicos de CABA awarded me three postgraduate scholarships and a scholarship for a short stay at the École Supérieure d'Interprètes et de Traducteurs (ESIT) in Paris. For three years, I was in charge of a translation course specializing in tourism, history and geography at the Pedro Goyena Institute in Bahía Blanca, Argentina. In 2018, I also completed an assistantship as trainer in the subject of social science translation at Lenguas Vivas J. R. Fernández. My thesis was a pedagogical proposal to train empowered professionals through the inclusion of texts that allow the work of non-standard language and enable the construction of new meanings. I used a text about crossdressers in the United States when no one was talking about gender or identities in translation courses in Argentina because I believe that classrooms cannot be disconnected from what happens in the street. Currently, I am engaged in my own research.
From 2012 to 2020, I made four trips to Europe, two to the United States, five to Brazil and journeyed to Australia, Singapore, Canada and Mexico, as well as other trips around Argentina. I go from one place to another because it moves me emotionally and because I miss that part of me when I'm not traveling: discoveries, learning and the possibility of continuing to make bridges and connections. I don't know any other way of life, but I don't think it's the best or the only way of living. For now, I'm not a digital nomad and I wouldn't give up everything to go backpacking either. If you ask me where I'm from, I can't just say I’m from one place. I feel like I am from all those places that formed me and defined who I am. That's why I feel like a citizen of the world.
Other things about me that I couldn't put on a resume
In some non-profit organizations, I combined my work as a translator with administrative and research tasks in international projects. I believe that working within a hierarchical structure is essential at some point in life. To be your own boss, you also have to learn to work with one.
Coming from a Lebanese family, food has a prominent place in my life. I spend a lot of time finding new restaurants and bars. I enjoy sitting alone and people watching. Some places are unraveled by analyzing how people bond when they eat or drink a coffee. If I travel, I don't follow guides, except to locate which is the best market. For friends, family and clients in different cities, I am the reference point for recommending great places to eat. I was a waitress in a restaurant in Colorado, United States. I became friends with some of the owners of my favorite places. All this earned me a job at the most well-loved American whisky distillery.
Through my mother's work as a writer, I grew up in museums and artists' studios. After that, I couldn't escape that world. I understood that art heals, saves and helps to process moments. When I grew up, I took a course in color perception at the HACHE gallery and another at MoMA on how to include art in education. I worked with artists on their portfolios and submissions to art proposals. I was a production assistant on a video clip by singer Axel Krygier and on the presentation of one of his albums. I think managing projects is a lot like producing. In addition, I studied singing for two years, which helped me a lot to regulate the air and voice in a performance booth.
The first months as a freelancer I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to support myself, so I went from babysitting to modeling. I also put my face to a game in the Tecnopolis theme park. Now that video is part of the program of the Ministry of Education of Argentina. I didn't give my consent for that.
