Voiceover is the ATC’s Member of the Month

The ATC’s Member of the Month is Govan Community Project, a Glasgow-based grassroots organisation working at the intersection of community support, social justice, and multilingual communication, and its language services arm Voiceover Interpreting. As the ATC prepares to bring its 50th anniversary conference, ATC Gold, to Glasgow in October 2026, this Member of the Month feature highlights a new and purposeful collaboration beyond language.

We caught up with Michaela Zemachová, Commercial Manager of Voiceover and Malcolm McArdle, Business Development Manager of GCP, who share insights into the role of language services in community settings, and how this partnership aims to create something lasting beyond the ATC Gold conference itself.

A partnership rooted in community impact

Ahead of ATC Gold, the ATC is partnering with its newly-joined, Glasgow-based members Govan Community Project and Voiceover Interpreting to deliver a dedicated workshop focused on multilingual communication in multicultural and multinational communities, and to meaningfully connect with local organisations and stakeholders.

This workshop, organised in collaboration with the ITI, will explore both the power and the complexity of multilingual communication in community contexts: from access to public services and legal systems, to the everyday challenges faced by individuals navigating life in a new language environment. By bringing together language service professionals, community representatives, and local organisations, the session aims to foster dialogue that is both practical and reflective.

Crucially, our shared ambition is to leave something behind. Rather than a one-off engagement, the collaboration is designed to create new connections, surface shared challenges, and contribute to longer-term thinking about how language services can better support diverse communities. In this sense, the partnership reflects a broader shift within the language services industry towards greater social engagement and responsibility.

Govan Community Project: advocacy, support, and solidarity

Founded in 2001, Govan Community Project is a community-led organisation based in one of Glasgow’s most diverse areas. Its work centres on supporting refugees, and people seeking asylum through a combination of direct services, advocacy, and community development support.

The organisation provides a wide range of support, including advocacy casework, asylum support advice, integration support, and works collaboratively with others campaigning on issues affecting migrant communities. Its approach is rooted in dignity, inclusion, and solidarity, with a strong emphasis on working alongside communities rather than for them.

Language plays a central role in this work. Access to interpreting and translation is often the difference between inclusion and exclusion, and between being able to navigate systems or being left on the margins. Govan Community Project has long recognised that language is not simply a technical requirement, but a fundamental component of access to rights, services, and participation.

This perspective informs not only GCP’s service delivery but also their broader advocacy work, highlighting systemic barriers and pushing for more equitable access to communication across public and third-sector services.

Voiceover Interpreting: professional services with a social mission

Voiceover Interpreting, the language services arm of Govan Community Project, was established to address precisely these challenges. As a subsidiary not for profit enterprise, it provides professional interpreting and translation services while reinvesting its income back into the GCP community.

Voiceover operates across a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, legal services, housing, and community support, offering both face-to-face and remote interpreting . Its model combines professional standards with a deep understanding of the contexts in which communication takes place, particularly in high-stakes or sensitive environments.

For Michaela Zemachová and Malcolm McArdle, joining the ATC represents an important step in strengthening this dual identity. On one hand, Voiceover operates as a fully-fledged language service provider, committed to quality, professionalism, and continuous development. On the other, it remains grounded in its social purpose, ensuring that commercial activity directly supports community impact.

This positioning also brings a distinctive perspective into the ATC community. Voiceover’s experience highlights how language services operate beyond traditional corporate environments, and how issues such as accessibility, trust, and cultural understanding are central to effective communication.

Bridging industry and community

The collaboration between the ATC, Govan Community Project, and Voiceover Interpreting reflects a broader convergence between the language services industry and community-based work. As multilingual communication becomes ever more critical the success of increasingly multicultural societies and economies, the need to bridge these worlds is increasingly evident.

ATC Gold 2026 provides a timely platform for this engagement. By working with a local grassroots organisation, the ATC is not only showcasing the diversity of language services but also reinforcing the role of the industry in supporting inclusion and access at a societal level.

For Govan Community Project and Voiceover, the partnership offers an opportunity to bring community perspectives into industry conversations. For the ATC and its members, it offers a chance to engage with real-world applications of multilingual communication in ways that extend beyond commercial contexts.

As the language services sector continues to evolve, collaborations such as this point towards a more connected and socially engaged future, one where language is recognised not only as a service, but as a bridge between people, communities, and opportunities.

Michaela Zemachová and Malcolm McArdle were in conversation with ATC CEO Raisa McNab.