It was created in 2012 and, a year and a half later, it is now ready to expand. Speak, a social business co-founded by EDP Foundation and the Fazer Avançar Association, is growing from Leiria to Caldas da Rainha and is expected to reach even more locations by the end of this year.
This project stemmed from the realisation that some immigrant communities in Portugal live in closed circles, in part due to the language barrier. Speak thus became a meeting point between people from different countries, enabling them to exchange linguistic and cultural knowledge and promoting their integration. That was how Speak Social was born. The project’s financial sustainability is ensured by Speak Pro, a low-cost language school where all teachers are native-speakers and/or teaching professionals.
The Fazer Avançar Association identified that Caldas da Rainha showed an even greater proportion of immigrants than Leiria, and presented social and cultural exclusion situations.
In 2013, over 570 people benefitted from this social business’s activity. In the last semester alone, 230 students from 17 different nationalities took part in Speak. Eleven languages were taught, including Mandarin, Arabic, Russian, Polish and Portuguese sign language.
In 2012, Speak won the Entrepreneurship competition at the third Social Entrepreneurship Institute (IES) bootcamp, powered by INSEAD, and was awarded the European Language Label, awarded by the European Commission to innovative projects dedicated to language teaching and learning.
