Our Story

With increasing numbers of forcibly displaced people, daunting projections of future displacements, and heightened levels of societal resentment towards these displaced communities, Conversations Unbound was founded in 2015 to provide livelihood support for forcibly displaced people, while also meaningfully engaging language learners in this global issue.

For displaced people, Conversations Unbound provides the opportunity to increase their agency and economic opportunities. We work with individuals who are new to online language tutoring, providing them with the platform, training, and language learners to develop their skills as independent online conversation partners. Some members of the conversation partner team who began their online teaching career with Conversations Unbound have leveraged their talents and are now full-time online conversation partners for language learners around the world. Others used their experience with Conversations Unbound as a resume and skill builder for other career opportunities.

The organization also strives to reconfigure traditional power dynamics at play in humanitarian aid. Conversations Unbound centers displaced communities, who are traditionally seen as passive recipients of aid, as a conversation partner. They are the producer and provider of knowledge. By privileging the expertise of our conversation partners, we aim to balance these traditional power dynamics — tutors and students can learn from each other by engaging in meaningful dialogue.

Conversations Unbound also provides a robust educational experience for language learners to improve their foreign language skills, engage in rich, cross-cultural dialogue, and think critically about forced displacement. Not only do language learners have the opportunity to strengthen their foreign-language conversational skills, but Conversations Unbound also provides opportunities for language learners to meet people who have different lived experiences. These one-on-one conversations enable language learners and conversation partners to find commonalities while learning to appreciate and respect their differences. In a world where hateful rhetoric about “others” is increasingly prevalent, Conversations Unbound works to break down the deeply entrenched "us versus them" mentality perpetuated through xenophobic narratives surrounding immigration and displacement.