Bulding peace: Culture and languages as a way to work againts xenophobia and discrimination.

The Travalinguas project connects migrants that are living in Brazil with the local people through cultural, social and language exchange as a way to work against xenophobia and discrimination.

The project was founded by Florencio Venté a young leader from Colombia that migrated to Brazil for professional reasons and after recognized the difficulties that the migrants have for adapting to the new languages and culture, he decided with the help of other migrants started the project.

During the last 2 years, the project has grown significantly connecting more than 150 people and help local businesses that allow the use of their coffee shops to organize meetings where people discuss different topics in more than 10 different languages.

During the Covid 19 pandemic, the project developed new strategies using social media to help migrants and they decided to promote the local businesses that are led by migrants as a way to help them to increase their incomes, also they started to share content related to migration, languages, and culture to help people understand the challenges that migrants lived by leaving in a new country.

Because of the impact of their work the project was invited to be part of the local youth council of the City where it has been developed, they have grown with the help of new volunteers that integrates migrants and local people and they have been sharing their experiences with other organizations in different regions of Brazil and the world and in this way this kind of initiative could be replicated.

For those who are interested, please click on the Action link above.

https://www.instagram.com/travalinguas.mga/