In our blog post How speaking languages can help solve global challenges, we talked about the bigger picture in which language learning is involved. We underlined the importance of speaking languages to build international relations. In this new piece, we are going to focus on one of these global issues, which happens to be the Covid-19 outbreak. 

It has been more than a year since Covid-19 hit the world and changed our lives forever. We reached many remarkable achievements so far to control the spread of the virus. But, many others are still needed. 

As Assistant Professor of Global Health Policy Dr Clare Wehnam explains in a video by LSE, the Covid-19 pandemic is a healthcare crisis as much as a political problem.

“Political decisions are deciding who is living and who is dying in this outbreak”

It’s crucial to understand the political side of this pandemic. 

The government of each country is responding to the crisis in a different way. The direct consequence of this isolationism? A highly divided environment. Some nations are recovering at high speed. Others, like India and Brazil, are dealing with extremely tragic scenarios, with 4.000 deaths a day causing the healthcare system to collapse. We’re facing a huge humanitarian crisis.

The United Nations agency WHO is already implementing an action plan to give its support to member nations, but it has no power over countries’ political decisions.

Finance plays a role in this too.

The Covid-19 pandemic didn’t just hit the healthcare system, it also caused deep losses to the global economy. Many companies risk going out of business, while others have already failed. Some are forced to fire their employees or to make cuts in their salaries. Not to mention the crisis some sectors are experiencing. The hospitality and tourism industries are just some examples.

The outbreak has put us in front of countless and unexpected challenges. The question comes naturally then:

What can we do to make a difference and help the world get better?

We at ProLingua Global think that international relations play an essential role in this context. Now, that we all have a common “enemy”, different countries’ governments should combine their efforts to manage the pandemic. 

But, to get people working together, good and effective communication is essential. That’s why it is so important to understand cultures, their worldview, and their values. Once we are aware of the differences, then we’ll be able to respect them and create an inclusive environment. And what’s a better way of doing it than learning a foreign language? 

Languages help us build a better understanding of others’ perspectives. Thanks to this knowledge, we can actually understand different government’s management practices. Why do they react in the way they react to the outbreak? How do they make the decisions they make?  

Better international relations between countries are now needed more than ever. Just through global collaboration, we can get a chance to save humanity and reach that light at the end of the tunnel.

Together. As a Big Team. For a Better World. A Better Future. 

Now we would like to hear from you. Do you agree with us on the necessity of language and cultural skills to overcome the pandemic?

If you’d like to dig further into this topic, here’s an interesting and revealing video by the University of Chicago on how the Corona Virus is changing the global economy and therefore our future.