Brussels, 30/01/2008 (Agence Europe) - In March 2008, the 27 winners of the "Juvenes Translatores" (young translators) contest will be invited for a three-day visit to Brussels to receive a certificate from the hands of the European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban. The 17-year old students - one per Member State - took part in the Juvenes Translatores pilot project was held simultaneously in all Member States on 14 November 2007 under the supervision of the schools involved. Participants were given two hours to translate one of the 23 different original texts on tourism into any other official language of the EU. There were 134 language pair combinations chosen (of a source and target languages). Over 1,300 texts were sent in, and 126 translators of the Directorate-General for Translation participated in the marking with a view to finding the best translation from each EU Member State. The winners and accompanying adults, will visit the European Commission, receive a prize, and meet the people who translate European legislative and policy documents. The contest was organised to celebrate multilingualism, one of the fundamental principles of the EU since its inception, and to give students an opportunity to see what it is like to be a translator. The project was also aimed at raising awareness of the central role of translation as part of the multilingual policy pursued by the European Commission, with significant spill-over and cross-fertilisation effects. Through this initiative, students discovered attractive career opportunities, while hundreds of schools found a new way of promoting linguistic diversity and touching on the rewarding side of language learning. (I.L.)