One message, many communities
Produce the same approved guidance in each language a programme serves, rather than only the two or three a budget used to allow.
For NGOs & humanitarian teams
Registration steps, health guidance and rights information help only in a language people actually understand — often one that commercial vendors rarely staff. Octavia makes it practical to produce the same message in the languages a programme serves, with community review built in where machine coverage is weaker.
The specific reasons this content usually stays in one language.
Communities served speak languages commercial vendors seldom cover, and the few that do are priced for marketing budgets, not programme budgets.
Information passed along messaging apps on basic phones and patchy connections has to work as a short clip or a voice note, not a polished film.
Beneficiary testimony carries consent, safety and dignity obligations that do not disappear when the video is translated for a donor audience.
The parts of the platform that matter for this work, rather than the full feature list.
Produce the same approved guidance in each language a programme serves, rather than only the two or three a budget used to allow.
Translated voice-over and subtitle-to-audio, so guidance works for low-literacy audiences and can travel as an audio file.
A locked glossary for the programme’s vocabulary — services, entitlements, place names, health terms — settled with community translators and reused.
Transcript and translation are editable and approvable before audio is generated, so a native speaker from the community corrects it first.
Subtitle beneficiaries rather than re-voicing them, keeping their words their own and avoiding a synthetic voice they never agreed to.
Field reports and appeals voiced for supporters in each fundraising market, with the location sound kept under the new narration.
Four steps from the file you already have to every language you need.
Guidance already signed off by the programme or technical lead, written in plain language.
Build the glossary with community translators, so entitlements and health terms match the words people actually use.
A speaker from the community checks each translation before any audio is produced — essential in lower-resource languages.
Audio, subtitled video and transcripts for the channels people already use, from messaging apps to community screenings.
One upload in, every format you need to publish out.
Including the ones where the honest answer is a limitation.
It varies, and we would rather be plain about that. Quality is strongest in widely spoken languages and weaker where there is less training data, strong regional dialect or frequent code-switching. Before committing a programme, run a short sample in each target language past a native speaker from the community you serve. Where the sample is weak, use Octavia for transcription and a first draft, and let a human translator finish.
Consent to be filmed is not consent to be shown in new markets, and it is never consent to a synthetic voice. Check what each contributor agreed to before a clip is localized for donors, prefer subtitles over re-voicing, and remove anything that could identify someone at risk — a translated video travels further than the original. Retention settings and role-based access help limit who can reach raw field material.
Only with human review. Health, protection and safety messages should be checked by a qualified native speaker — and ideally the technical lead for that sector — before release. The realistic gain is coverage and speed: a reviewed version in many languages rather than a perfect one in two. Prepare and approve core messages in advance, so they exist before the moment they are needed.
With content you already produce but cannot afford to localize: orientation videos, service explainers, rights information, staff and volunteer training. The cost that does not go away is human review, so budget for community reviewers before anything else. Donor-facing material is often the easiest first project, because a mistake there carries the least risk to the people you serve.
Practical guides from the Octavia editorial team.
The same engine, pointed at a different kind of work.
Start with one orientation video in the two languages your field team is asked about most, and have community reviewers check it.