Speak - The Social Business

Every week 3 million people move to a new city, and there are several reasons for a family or individual to be forced to leave their home. Whether for a better life, Education or the urgency of a war scenario.

SPEAK promotes the emergence of communities where locals and migrants meet to share their culture and develop meaningful bonds by providing a web platform for individuals to facilitate informal language learning environments and community events. 

SPEAK’s theory of change is based on the field-tested hypothesis that the creation of opportunities for people to meet with a common objective in an informal environment, in which cultures are shared and appreciated, is one of the most powerful tools to foster greater social inclusion. Emerging economy like Bangladesh has many young people who wishes to settle down abroad and Speak can help them to be integrated in that challenging environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Every week 3 million people move to a new city, and there are several reasons for a family or individual to be forced to leave their home. Whether for a better life or the urgency of a war scenario, the problem of integration arises in the challenges migrants and refugees find in their destination. Language barrier, lack of friends and family and bureaucratic processes are one side of the coin, while ethnic and religious discrimination are the other. And in Bangladesh these are a concerning challenge as well.

SPEAK fights against the social exclusion of migrants and refugees caused by social barriers, discrimination, and anti-migrant rhetoric. Many integration policies fail from the beginning due to their incomplete vision of this complex challenge. The sociocultural integration needs to be understood and worked in each of its causes - thus a holistic approach is required.

At SPEAK, while people learn with each other, they are breaking barriers and prejudice. The creation of an informal support network unlocks many opportunities that contribute to a greater social inclusion. For example, members often help each other with job offers or renting a house thanks to the power of their SPEAK community.

At SPEAK everyone can apply to learn or to help others learn languages and cultures: locals who want to learn new languages and connect with different cultures, and newcomers who are in the process of adapting to a new city. SPEAK uses the motivation and need that people have to learn a language to bring together people of different contexts in an informal environment, where they stand as equals, with a high probability of creating strong and meaningful relationships. 

SPEAK is a community-based solution, where both newcomers and locals participate actively in the solution. SPEAK places migrants and refugees as ambassadors for cultural dialogue in their communities, empowering newcomers to take action and it helps mitigating cultural stigma by demonstrating the richness of multiculturalism to local communities.

At SPEAK, while people learn with each other, they are breaking barriers and prejudice. The creation of an informal support network unlocks many opportunities that contribute to a greater social inclusion. For example, members often help each other with job offers or renting a house thanks to the power of their SPEAK community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

SPEAK promotes the emergence of communities where locals and migrants meet to share their culture and develop meaningful bonds by providing a web platform for individuals to facilitate informal language learning environments and community events. 

It follows an Online2Offline model -- members sign up on a web platform to learn or help others learn a language but the experience happens offline, face to face. This experience consists of community-led language groups that meet once a week for 90-minute sessions for 12 weeks, and community-organized events like language exchanges, city treasure hunts or cooking sessions. 

The informal environment and methodology used allow participants to learn with each other, while at the same time breaking barriers and creating meaningful relationships, creating a multicultural community where cultural heritage is cherished. This network has created opportunities for newcomers to get informal recommendations and guidance regarding specific needs and integration challenges. SPEAK adopts a bottom-up approach that works only with the participation of its community. The program is entirely composed of members of the SPEAK community, having buddies (people who help others learn) and participants be interchangeable (i.e. buddies can become participants of other language groups, and vice versa). Having this bottom-up approach generates a feeling of self-worth, as beneficiaries feel responsible for their own transformation and integration process. Moreover, this builds stronger support networks, and a greater sense of belonging throughout.

These offline experiences - language groups and events - take place in underutilized spaces from organizations that are interested in having new people and activities in their facilities. These can be, for instance, libraries, bars, or cultural associations.

SPEAK’s Online2Offline operating model allows the management team to handle and automate training to facilitators/hosts, payments, operations, communication and customer support through a single online portal developed in-house, while still providing network-building experiences offline to locals, migrants and refugees. This model ensures a greater efficiency and it allows the project to scale and be replicated by a social franchising model. Last year, SPEAK launched a program called Take SPEAK to Your City which makes it very easy to start a new SPEAK chapter. The team trains anyone willing to set up SPEAK in their city, so that they can help it become more inclusive and at the same time create their own job. The training includes sales, partnerships, operations, local marketing, and tailored ongoing support. 

Most initiatives trying to tackle this problem limit their impact by not looking at all the causes behind it, resulting in incomplete interventions, such as formal language courses, tackling the language barrier but ignoring the fact that the imposition of the course and its rigidity directly contribute to an increased feeling of not belonging. 

SPEAK, on the other hand, is a community-based solution, offering a language and culture exchange program as a means to bring newcomers and locals together, both participating actively in the solution. SPEAK’s approach:

1) Places migrants and refugees as bridge builders and ambassadors for cultural dialogue in their communities, empowering newcomers to take action, as they are not only guests or receivers anymore;

2) Provides an informal support network to newcomers upon their arrival, helping breaking up the systemic vicious circle of isolation;

3) Mitigates cultural stigma by demonstrating the richness of multiculturalism to local communities in practice.

Rather than language learning, SPEAK measures meaningful relationships and what they represent. SPEAK breaks down the isolation barrier in 12 weeks.

An additional innovation at SPEAK is its Online2Offline model: applications and payments take place online, while the learning and sharing experience is offline, in the real world. This model makes for the most efficient use of resources and is geared toward growth, helping to keep scale and efficiency as priorities and making it easier to launch SPEAK in new cities. In a way, this model is allowing SPEAK to empower communities at scale.

The social exclusion of migrants and refugees is a multidimensional problem that requires a scrutinized analysis of its causes, including the language barrier, discrimination, and the lack of a support networks. 

SPEAK’s theory of change is based on the field-tested hypothesis that the creation of opportunities for locals and migrants to meet with a common objective, and in an informal environment, in which cultures are shared and appreciated, is one of the most powerful tools to foster greater social inclusion. 

SPEAK brings this together in its activities - language groups and community-organized events.

On the short term, the participation in SPEAK activities contribute to the acquisition of the language, the creation of a support network and the increased knowledge about different cultures. On the medium term, these changes lead to a higher sense of belonging to the community and the valorization of the migrant community. Ultimately, these contribute to our long term goal: the social inclusion of migrants and refugees. 

SPEAK measures its impact on the community through surveys sent to users who participated

in at least 1 language group. Our impact assessment report shows that, by the end of 12th week of participation in SPEAK’s language groups and events, the participants’ sense of belonging in the host community has already increased by 15% and that language is 30% less of a barrier in their integration process. Furthermore, 73% of newcomers made friends through SPEAK, with72% meeting their friends at least once a month outside of SPEAK activities.

SPEAK is now a community of over 20.000 people from 160 different nationalities who are spread over 21 cities in Europe. In Portugal, the government is now using SPEAK as the mainstream solution to integrate refugees. So far, our community has completed more than 900 language groups and organized over 500 events. In 2018 alone, SPEAK impacted 7,244 people, and in 2019 we plan to double it.

Our social franchising model is boosting growth. In 2019, SPEAK almost doubled the number of cities where it is present, going from 12 to 21 in 7 months.

SPEAK wants to be in 40 cities by 2020 and the current growth rate gives us confidence that this is a realistic goal. Considering the existing SPEAK communities, this geographic reach means a global network of 30,000 people impacted yearly. In 5 years, SPEAK will be in 100 cities, reaching 80,000 people yearly.

Our plan is to introduce at least 10 Language groups in Dhaka, Bangladesh by 2020 with the expected numbers of participants 1000. And in next 5 years we plan to expand the program to other cities in Bangladesh, such as Chottogram and Sylhet, with an expected number of 20000 participants overall.

We plan to expand the SPEAK program in 2020 to Dhaka. The primary focus will be on the young generation, school, college and university students from the local community, and also on international students, volunteers, workers and experts.

Half of Bangladesh's population is under 25 years old and Bangladesh is currently hosting 1,5 million refugees. Many of this young generation are expected to emigrate to different countries for both settlement and education. SPEAK can provide them with an opportunity to not only learn a language but also a culture in a multicultural informal environment. This way they will be better prepared and it will be easier for them to integrate in the new country.

SPEAK measures its impact on the community through surveys sent to users who participated

in at least 1 language group. Our impact assessment report shows that, by the end of 12th week of participation in SPEAK’s language groups and events, the participants’ sense of belonging in the host community has already increased by 15% and that language is 30% less of a barrier in their integration process. Furthermore, 73% of newcomers made friends through SPEAK, with72% meeting their friends at least once a month outside of SPEAK activities.

SPEAK is currently partnering with several Portuguese and international organizations. In order to reach the beneficiaries who need SPEAK the most, it has communication partners like the government, migrant associations, and embassies, among others.

The program is entirely composed of members of the SPEAK community, having buddies (people who help others learn) and participants be interchangeable (i.e. buddies can become participants of other language groups, and vice versa). Having this bottom-up approach generates a feeling of self-worth, as beneficiaries feel responsible for their own transformation and integration process. Moreover, this builds stronger support networks, and a greater sense of belonging throughout.

These offline experiences - language groups and events - take place in underutilized spaces from organizations that are interested in having new people and activities in their facilities. These can be, for instance, libraries, bars, or cultural associations.

SPEAK’s Online2Offline operating model allows the management team to handle and automate training to facilitators/hosts, payments, operations, communication and customer support through a single online portal developed in-house, while still providing network-building experiences offline to locals, migrants and refugees.

SPEAK's revenues are based on a symbolic enrollment fee adjusted to the country’s cost of living and much lower than the market average for offline courses. SPEAK also gets funds from donations and grants.

Nevertheless, participants who cannot afford the symbolic fee have free access to SPEAK and their other activities. Buddies also have the opportunity to attend the courses free.

The investment fund and the strategic and operational support from the Tiger IT Foundation, would provide SPEAK with the best conditions to start its expansion to Bangladesh, to reach the target population, to reach potential locations for the courses, and to be able to organize more events.

SPEAK is interested in having communication partners such as the government, government organizations and local government. SPEAK is also interested in partnering with multinational companies, corporate organizations for technical support and sponsorship.