The authors address thorny issues of the translation process in the context of English-speaking countries with multilingual language policies. Although pragmatic reasons insist on English as the language of record, in many ‘new world’ countries – including South Africa - it is the multilingual context that is demographically predominant. As English competence among many of the population is, understandably, often not adequate to the occasion, translators have to assume the role of cultural facilitators. This may involve a partial or complete rewriting or editing of a poorly written English source text. The authors propose a partnership approach to translation - combining a functionalist approach (which is based on ideal text-users) with a community approach (that takes into account impoverished end-users) - which is meant to encourage translational co-operation between all the stakeholders: source-text producers, target-text receivers, and other intermediary agents such as commissioners of translations. The aim is civil and professional empowerment through translation.