Community of Brilliance

I am passionate about lifelong learning and social change. I often find myself restless and hungry for projects that I believe would create an impact in improving the lives of disadvantaged people or in inspiring people to move. Two of the projects close to my heart are One Drop One Hope and Sibol Pilipinas which are both based in the Philippines.

I am currently Head of Volunteering at Community Action: MK and I also lead a programme to help the voluntary sector engage with the opportunities and challenges that Open Data can bring.

I’m interested in service and sharing based community enterprise and I’m particularly interested in the human resource aspect of Speak Street. I believe it has huge potential to scale.

Born in Saudi Arabia to English and Thai parents, English has always been my first language but it wasn’t very strong when I first moved to the UK as a child. I can imagine that coming to the UK with english not being a first language in such a jam-packed city like London, must be very daunting.

What Joanna and Speak Street are doing is very important to the community. It’s such a natural and friendly way for people to learn and converse – thumbs up to permaculture.

As a foreign lost in this big city, I had challenges to adapt to the culture and language, making my early days in London harder than what they needed to be. I see Speak Street as an economic option for newcomers to improve their english, which will just bring them benefits at all levels: from finding a job, to meeting people and start creating a feel of belonging.

After a 17-year finance career in several different roles, I left ‘the City’ in 2010 to find a more meaningful career direction. Immersing myself in voluntary work in my community taught me that working towards better outcomes for marginalised people is something I love doing.

I’m a trained economist with more than 10 years of work experience across different sectors (e.g. management consulting, open innovation/ crowdsourcing) and countries (Vietnam, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan). I speak German, English and Russian (beginners level) and I’m passionate about handball.
In October 2014 I started my own coaching business focusing on leadership, career and start-up coaching. I enjoy working with and for people to empower them to live the life they want.
I decided to work with Speak Street because I know how important it is to speak the language of the country you live in. It is essential to one’s cultural understanding, makes integration easier and strengthens communities.

I love travelling, nature and people. I have faith that humanity is able to live in harmony and I want to contribute to that ideal; which is one reason I am a fan of Speak Street.

The project with which I am currently involved will develop a new technology to help curb the threat to our natural environment, relieve resource scarcity and contribute to our transition to a more sustainable model of human society.

Louise is a fellow sustainable entrepreneur and founder of edible insect company Hot Buzz. She met Joanna at a training event and loves the idea of Speak Street! Louise also works for a Peruvian non-profit where she coordinates support for sustainable livelihood initiatives. As such, she a) really appreciates the value of community and b) wishes her Spanish was better!

I am passionate about service and how it can not only transform your environment but also yourself. As Gandhi said ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others’. I am involved with Speak Street because it allows neighbours an opportunity to serve their community while strengthening relationships. Not knowing who lives next door to you is crazy, isn’t it? Speak Street tackles this by providing a platform to get neighbours talking (literally!) and deepen cross cultural understanding. Most of all, it is fun!