growing up with my nani (grandma) in southall, west london i spoke a blend of languages that represented my family's migratory history - punjabi, urdu, english (each peppered with swahili words & phrases).
like a lot of second/third generation migrants to places like the uk, my teenage self gradually let english take over at home and school (especially after a fresh prince style move to greater london suburbia 😱)!
as an adult wanting to reconnect, i was fortunate to set-up and run apples & pears - a charity that built community projects with often overlooked groups across london.
engaging with migrant communities similar to the ones i grew up in brought me halfway 'home' and i was eager to complete the journey!
lacking the confidence to bring it up (or practice!) with my wider family, i started looking for online punjabi, urdu and swahili teachers as a way of revisiting my heritage and ancestral memory.
the process uncovered some uncomfortable truths:
- online 1:1 language teachers often face poor pay, burnout, loneliness and no or limited access to employee style benefits.
- most of the world's 7,000+ languages have very little online/digital representation, worse still up to 40% of those are in danger of extinction over the next 80-100 years.
these insights led me to start somos, a creator platform designed to:
- empower language teachers with tools and resources to thrive
- preserve and promote language diversity and heritage languages
- champion language, worker, and migrant rights
- be a community first business with co-ownership opportunities for everyone involved
we have ambitious goals for somos. in addition to developing a customer-centric product offering, we strive to be innovative in our recruitment, governance, community, and co-ownership approaches.
we've started this journey through pioneering partnerships with organizations like open door policy, where we recruit our refugee team members, and ownco, a groundbreaking co-ownership platform that helps us achieve our goal of offering teachers equity in the business.
if you'd like to find out a little more about how somos is managed, our team, plans for the future and approach, please see below.
thanks for stopping by!
- khawar | founder & ceo @ somos 👋🏽
you're welcome to connect with me:
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