Our new friends from LEI

At the moment I am contacting our future friends from LEI . It would be so nice to have contacts with them in all languages
We are part of LEI in an unorganied way ...Just the pleasure of communicating with the whole world
Just have a look for yourself

Table of contents


A. Introduction 2
B. History and activity of specific clubs: 3
1. France 3
1.1.1. Happy People 26 – Valence 3
1.1.2. Happy People 38 - Grenoble 4
1.1.3. Happy people 18 - Bourges 4
1.1.4. Happy People Lyon 5
1.1.5. Happy People 31 5
1.1.6. Cafés Polyglottes du Nord de la France 6
2. GERMANY 6
2.1.1. Internationales Sprachcafé Duisburg 6
3.1.1. Language Exchange Club Kyiv 7
3.1.2. Language Exchange Club Lviv 7
4.1.1. Madrid Babel 8
5.1.1. Toronto Babel 10
6.1.1. Extreme Language exchange 10
6.1.2. Expats living in Rome 10
7.1.1. Perth’s Melting Pot – A language Exchange 11
8.1.1. Budapest Melting Pot 11
9.1.1. Lima Babel 12
10.1.1. La Chamuyera - Rosario 12


A. Introduction

Founded in 2010, Language Exchange International seeks to bring together, promote or start up groups across countries, both formal and informal, to pursue the following goals:

- To welcome and befriend foreigners in each of our cities with the goal of making their stay easier and more fulfilling through immersion in the countries in which they live.

- To promote languages and cultures internationally, regionally and locally with the goal of allowing people in each locality to practice languages and meet people from the entire world.

The Federation of LEI is open for new members and seeks to gather all language exchange groups throughout the world and create new one in other cities.

There are currently member groups from Germany, Spain, Hungary, Peru, Ukraine, France, Australia, Italy, Argentina and Canada in Language Exchange International.

B. History and activity of specific clubs:

1. France

1.1.1. Happy People 26 – Valence

Contact : Romain GALATI – Romain.galati@gmail.com

Happy People is an initiative of the twin sisters Amanda and Magali Penoël. Their passion of languages and travels motivated them to create a language exchange group, in order to meet people from all over the world while practicing languages: this is Happy People!

The first meetings took place at the Bar of Le Pathé Theater during one year, every Wednesday from 8.30 pm. In April 2006, 2 months after the first meetings, Romain Galati, student in applied languages, and Nicolas Gourdon, employee, met the group. From the first moment, a collaboration between Amanda and Romain started and Amanda could count on this collaboration to delegate her responsibilities to him.

From September 2006, Romain became the leader of the language exchange group (Amanda had much less time because of professional reasons). He contacted his former High School Camille Vernet and the language teachers. This is how he got to know Carola Wiedemuth, a young German language assistant. Both got on very well and Carola, who was very interested in Happy People, informed all her language assistants pairs about the meetings. Only by word of mouth, the number of participant increased. From about 20 participants last year, there were now more than 40 participants from all countries (German, English, Italian, Spanish, Polish... and of course French! The group was such a success that Nicolas Gourdon created a website:

www.happypeople26.com to open this community to the world. This website quickly became the meeting point of all members. He added a very practical element to organize the meetings and to communicate with the participants.

With this big success, Romain and Nicolas began to think about registering the group into an association. The main point was to have more power at the local and international level: possibilities of partnership with the twinning committee, tourist information, city council, schools, various events and contests... The second reason was to be sure that the group will last in the time with, year after year, a renewal of the organization’s team. Procedures to register the group had been taken and on July 2007, the association was officially register under the name "Happy People 26". In fact, this name wasn't only the name that Amanda and Magali created; it was also a perfect name to describe our association: the atmosphere, welcoming people, etc... We are "happy people" to see us, to discover other culture. Besides, we use to use this word very often to describe our activities (Happy Crepes party, Happy Picnic, Happy Cards ...) ;-)

The following year allowed Happy People to confirm its statutes of association. During this year, we started to organize conferences about Europe with the twinning committee of Valence and Europe Direct. During 2007-2008, a lot of integration's activities had been organized such as visit of Valence, of Lyon, of Paris, French lessons, sports, wandering, etc... 2008-2009 founded its cruising speed and 2009/2010 marks the maturity of the association, who in just 4 years reached its objectives to be a strong member of the association's network of Valence and to become the international reference in the city.

A new group was also started in the city of Romans-sur-Isère, 20km from Valence. This new group is part of Happy People 26 and most of the activities are in common.

Today, our association is getting very involved and asks some essential questions: How can we change Valence into an international city? How can we welcome and integrate more easily expats? What kind of help do they need to enjoy their living in Valence in the best way? Language Exchange International could be the answer.


1.1.2. Happy People 38 - Grenoble

Contact : Steven Strachan - steven.strachan@gmail.com

Happy People 38 is the result of the meeting of 6 persons who were fond of language and intercultural exchange in Grenoble. Between them, Pierre Ejarque, student in political science and Romain Galati, student in translation studies. Pierre wanted to create language exchange meetings, Romain offered him to share his experience of Happy People 26 to set this project up. This is how the first meetings took place at the end of October 2008 at the bar Le XIII.

The aim was to promote languages and international cultures in Grenoble while helping international people to meet French people and get better integrated.

In November 2008, a website was created: http://www.happypeople38.com and became the references of all HP's of Grenoble.

5 months later, the group reach the symbolic milestones of 50 members and from this point, the meeting kept gathering more people each week, with 20/30 people per meeting. The group started to create partnerships with other associations in Grenoble like Young European Isère...

From this time, Steven Strachan, a Scottish man living in Grenoble, undertook the organization of the meeting and did gather always more participants at each meeting. Other activities had been organized in order to go further in the exchange. Now the group has a real organization team and more than 250 members on the website in one year, which made Happy People 38 a successful initiative in Grenoble.


1.1.3. Happy people 18 - Bourges

Contact : Adrien Lelièvre - sakapatate@hotmail.fr

In 2007, L.Viera was organizing an "English Club" under the form of a weekly meeting in the city center of Bourges. The group was not official and the communication was by word of mouth between the participants who became close friends very quickly.

This group was quite small with only 10 members at the beginning. Then, Adrien Leliève heard about it by an American language assistant he met some weeks ago.

In September 2008, things changed as L. Viera moved and could not continue to organize the meeting. He proposed to Adrien Leliève to continue the meeting and to find a new place for the "English club". As he just came back from one month in Mexico, Adrien Lelièvre wanted to open the meeting to the Spanish language. He then contacted a Mexican woman with help of the Spanish language assistants of 2007. Then, several Spanish and Latinos members joined the weekly meeting which was now taking place in a new pub in the city center.

Word to mouth and mutual friends did the rest, the "English Club" become the "Language café (Café des langues)" and gathered people from various countries (Germany, Italy, Poland, Brazil...). The number of participants increased and reaches now about 30 persons each week.

Adrien Lelièvre was then contacted by Romain Galati through Facebook in February 2009 and after several Email exchange, the language café of Bourges joined the Happy People network and became the association Happy People 18 some weeks later.

From this point, the meetings continued on Friday night with always a lot of people. A more quiet meeting had been set up during the week, which made 2 meetings per week.

Please note that the current logo of Language Exchange International was created by HP18.


1.1.4. Happy People Lyon

Contact : Jean-Christophe Renaud - zonzon_26@hotmail.fr

In April 2009, Olivier Bidaud wanted to organize a Language Exchange meeting in Lyon and did organized a first meeting at the bar "Au bon Beurre". The invitation to this meeting was sent on several websites and this is how Romain Galati entered in contact with Olivier. After several emails, Olivier agreed to join the Happy People network, even more that the meetings were new, he needed support.

Lyon's meeting did gather a lot of people very quickly. 60, 80 participants at each meeting from the beginning. However, very few participants came regularly and it became very difficult to find people who wanted to take part to the organization

Hopefully, the Happy People Network effect worked well. Indeed, Jean Christophe Renaud, former member of Happy People 26 and Nicolas Jacquart, Ambassador of the Franco-German Youth Office and friend of Romain Galati will take over the organisation of the meetings.

From this time, Nicolas Jacquart found a new job in another city and Jean-Christophe Renaud continued to organize the meetings. A small group of regular people had been formed, which allowed Happy People Lyon to work on strong basis.


1.1.5. Happy People 31

Contact : Selma Polovina - Enigma_6934@hotmail.fr

Happy People 31 was created under the initiative of Eric Laurent, president of the association Bilingue (Bilingual) in Toulouse. Then Romain Galati contacted him through Selma Polovina, ambassador of the Franco-German Youth Office.

The Bilingue association was created for 4 years and organized Language café in Toulouse. Thanks to informal links, Bilingue created a real network of international association in the city and they were working together on some projects.

However, Bilingue wanted to attract more than French people in its Language Café. They wanted to brings variety in the association's activities and gather other international activities in Toulouse and make these informal links official.

That's why they wanted to join Happy People network. In fact, Happy People is a vague name, which allows bringing all international association together in Toulouse. Happy People 31 was created in November 2009.

Thanks to the experience of Bilingue, 20 persons did attend the first organization’s meeting of Happy People 31.

From this time, Happy People 31 is getting very popular thanks to the international network of Bilingue.


1.1.6. Cafés Polyglottes du Nord de la France

Contact : Muriel Bercez - mbercez@nordnet.fr

Fabien was a student in Belgium. He discovered there the Polyglot Circle of Brussels. In 2000, he decided with his friend Michel to import this concept to Lille and create a Polyglot Café (this is not an association and the only things required is to buy a drink).
The success was quick and Muriel, a regular member, wanted to create another group on the Opale coast: Calais in 2003, then Boulogne sur mer in 2008. In the meantime, Dunkerque opened a Café Langue (Language Café) in 2005 (under the form of an association, ceased operations and then rebuilt in 2009 under the presidency of Elodie).
Annick and Philippe also created a Polyglot Café in 2009 at Le Touquet. For the last 3 years under the initiative of Muriel, all Polyglot groups from the region North organize a common barbecue meeting to get to know each other better and create friendship. Why not create a common Internet page? We did. Florent and Muriel relaunched Melanie's website, and then on January 8th 2010, the friendly network of the polyglot café of North of France was created!


2. GERMANY

2.1.1. Internationales Sprachcafé Duisburg

Contact : Damira Schumacher - damira.schumacher@googlemail.com

The « Internationales Sprachcafé Duisburg » (International Language Café of Duisburg) was created on June 2009 and is the first non-French group who joined Happy People network. The first meeting had been organized by Romain Galati who was then doing an internship of 2 months in Duisburg, Germany at the department of European affairs of Duisburg. He talked about this project to his colleague and they presented him contacts of other associations such as the French-German association, the UK / Germany association, the Italy/Germany association, the Croatian bund, Europe Direct, etc.
The first invitation had been sent to all these associations and to several social networks such as Couchsurfing or Facebook.

And not less than 15 persons did attend the first Language Café, German and international people. Between them, Damira Schumacher, who will very quickly love the concept and continue the organization two months later, when Romain Galati went back to France.
Meetings after meetings, the success was there and between 20, 40 people from all over the world did attend the language café meetings.
From this time, Damira Schumacher is the organizer of the Language Café meeting and other persons took part to the organization.

3. Ukraine
3.1.1. Language Exchange Club Kyiv

Contact : John Carragee - johncarragee@gmail.com

The Language Exchange Club Kyiv was founded in April 2009 by four Couch Surfers: a Frenchman, two Ukrainians and an American. John Carragee, Anton Griga and Yuliya Gatilova met each other through Couch Surfing. Thomas Moussy had recently arrived in Kyiv as a European Volunteer (EVS) responsible for organizing the AGORA, the Europe-wide meeting of AEGEE.

Each of them was fluent in at least three languages, and they saw mutual help with the improvement of language skills as a primary goal. The conversation groups quickly became the dominant activity of the club and took on a cheerful, vibrant social nature. The Club soon evolved to do many activities from weekly Salsa during the summer to excursions to other cities in Ukraine (and soon Germany).

In August, as the main meetings for English, Russian and German continued to grow rapidly we saw that we had to make some major decisions. We then had more than 200 members on Facebook, 45 people in one English meeting on one night, and an urgent need to organize a larger number of smaller groups. As a result, John Carragee created a web-site Language Exchange Club Kyiv . We brought new active members, a flourishing of new groups, and deeper communication among members as they have embraced the system enthusiastically.

For this moment we have near 800 members in our network and are practicing 8 languages with weekly events: English, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Spanish, Italian. We develop in different kinds of activities: language and conversational meetings, free German lessons for intermediate level, literature and reading meeting, cinema club “Kino and Nimzi”, fun events (to play games together, to make excursions, to have a party together).

Recently the team of Language Exchange Club Kyiv is working to extend the activity in other cities. As a result we have already established successful clubs in Wroclaw, Krakow, Poznan, and Gdansk in Poland and continue to work in other cities in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. We help to organize new clubs to practice a foreign language for free and happy that people support this initiative!"

3.1.2. Language Exchange Club Lviv

Contact : Sergiy Sumnikov - sumnikovs@yahoo.de
At the end of August 2009 LEC Kyiv tried to start meetings in Lviv via Matthias Crepel who was EVS volunteer there. Unfortunately, his volunteering time in Lviv was at the end, so he in turn was looking for the person(s) who could start to organize regular meeting. To one of such organizational meetings came John Carragee from LEC Kyiv and explained the concept of LEC in detail. Sergiy Sumnikov volunteered to be responsible for organizing the club. Khrystia Dubnytska volunteered to support him.


In September 2009 Sergiy Sumnikov organized the general meeting where the club concept was discussed and the leaders for different language groups were identified. From September the club members and group amounts were rising steadily. From the very beginning it was defined as one of the most important goals of the club the cultural exchange and, thus, the need in presence of non-Ukrainians in the meetings. Furthermore, the quality of the personal relationship and not the quantity of the club members was considered to be the highest priority.

At the moment about 50 different people participate at about 7 events per week and about 25-35% from them are foreigners (some people visit 4 and more events per week). We have about 100 people registered on Ning and over 200 registered in our Facebook group.

It is to point out that John Carragee from LEC Kyiv supported us a lot, especially in introducing Ning and promoting the club.


4. SPAIN
4.1.1. Madrid Babel

Contact : Fran Rodriguez Veiga - madridbabel@yahoo.es

Since he was a little child, Fran Rodríguez Veiga always had a great attraction for languages and international relations, and then studied law thinking of doing the diplomatic career, but he realized he did not want to leave Madrid. So, in his spare time he became a kind of unofficial ambassador for people from other countries coming to Madrid and he started to organize meetings attended by more and more people eager to exchange languages & make new international friends, resulting MadridBabel in 2000. Currently it has more than 16,000 members belonging to its different forums, the most important ones being at Yahoogroups and Facebook.

MadridBabel organizes two weekly international encounters in Madrid:

- Wednesdays starting at 21.30 at Café Madrid (c/ Escalinata s/n - metro Opera)
- Sundays starting at 19.00 at The Quiet Man (c/ Valverde, 44 - metro Tribunal or Gran Vía).

In addition to the two weekly encounters, MadridBabel organizes many other events in Madrid and surroundings areas. These include going to original version films (with subtitles in Spanish) every other Friday, international dinners and tapas at a variety restaurants and bars, excursions, sports, cultural visits, etc. There are also parties with an international flare which usually attract over 600 people.

As plans for the near future, MadridBabel is going to improve its website, to continue supporting the creation of similar groups in closed collaboration with LEI after the already existing MontepellierBabel and TorontoBabel, as well as to enhance the services offered to its members.

5. CANADA

5.1.1. Toronto Babel

Contact : Beth McLoad - torontobabel@gmail.com

TorontoBabel is an international language exchange group that brings together native and non-native speakers of many different languages from various countries around the world. The group provides a fun and relaxed atmosphere where you can practice speaking a new language and make new friends with people from all over the world completely for FREE!

The weekly meetings allow participants to keep practicing their second (or third, or fourth, etc...) language with lots of new people.

TorontoBabel is the first North American extension of the highly successful language exchange group based in Madrid, Spain called Madrid Babel.

TorontoBabel's language exchange night is called International Night and it takes place every Wednesday night upstairs in the pool bar at The Rivoli (334 Queen St. W - Queen and Spadina) starting at 7pm until around midnight.

For those of you who are new to Canadian culture, it is customary to tip around 15% at bars...just so you know!

Everyone is welcome! Just ask for Beth!


6. ITALY
6.1.1. Extreme Language exchange

Contact : Andrew Marmion - host@extremelanguage.net

Extreme Language Exchange was founded by Andrew Marmion in October 2009. He came up with the idea of forming a dedicated group after talking to many foreigners and Italians who had difficulty finding people to exchange languages with. Each event has an average turn out of 40 people and lasts for approximately 2 hours. The events are structured in such a way that each participant gets to speak to between 8 and 10 different people. The belief is that these mini-conversations help to improve peoples’ confidence and the different accents help to tune the year to the language.

Regularly after each event they normally go to a bar close by to have “chocolate shots”. The exchange also has links with local theatre groups and event organizers in the Rome area, where discounts and free tickets have been offered to Extreme Language Exchange goers.

Below are some photos from some of the events.


6.1.2. Expats living in Rome

Contact : Patrizia Di Gregorio - Rome-expats@hotmail.com

Patrizia Di Gregorio AKA Niccobella is the founder of Expats living in Rome. Since 2001 she has been involved with Expats living in all of Italy organizing events and volunteering her time.
Now Expats living in ROME' is an international social network run by expatriates living and working in Rome. They meet regularly for: happy hour events, language exchange, day trips and help each other to overcome obstacles, and share ideas. The group is collaborating with other networks in Rome, such as InterNations , Couch Surfers in Rome, International friends in Rome, Extreme Language Exchange, VCN Groups, Acting in English in Rome, A small world, Language Exchange in Rome - Why Not Rome?!


7. AUSTRALIA
7.1.1. Perth’s Melting Pot – A language Exchange

Contact : Derek Conran - derekconran@yahoo.co.uk

The founder of the group is Leonie Savage. The group has been meeting at 7.30pm at Durty Nelly's Bar on Shafto Lane in Perth since late July 2009. The main idea of the group is to get together people, share different languages and cultures. Any language and any level are welcome. This is also a great way to meet people and arrange some one-on-one language sharing later.


8. HUNGARY
8.1.1. Budapest Melting Pot

Contact : Veronika Tóth - teveroka@gmail.com

The team and how it started:

Kata had the dream of organizing a club where people can use the English language as a means of communication she invited the participants of the BC Intercultural Navigator's programme to join the initiative. There were some brainstorming sessions and with some initial helpers we (Kata and Vero) launched the first BMP in autumn 2009. At the beginning of 2010 two co-organizers, Mary and Eszter joined us. We also have Csaba who is in charge of the website, design and catering if needed.

We enjoy working on BMP because the people visiting our events are enthusiastic about meeting people of different nationalities, join discussions or creative activities. We also love using our imagination and putting together the programmes and see that people do benefit from this initiative.

About BMP and its goals:

Budapest melting Pot is an intercultural English language chat-club where Budapest is the main topic and link. This regularly held, ongoing club addresses topics related to Budapest through creative and playful activities, quizzes, round-table discussions and cultural events. We welcome everybody to this open community, regardless of age, gender, race, profession or citizenship.

This inclusive club has two specific goals:
To give foreigners coming to Budapest the opportunity to meet Hungarians in person so that they can build a deeper, long-lasting relationship with the city and its inhabitants.
To give Hungarians and foreigners the chance to practice the English language and meet people of different nationalities.

9. PERU
9.1.1. Lima Babel

Contact : Claudia Alejandra Flores Guardia - yandra19@hotmail.com

I lived in Madrid last year and a friend introduced me to a language exchange group called Madrid Babel, I had so much fun that I kept going every week and also to other exchange groups and made a lot of friends from many parts of the world and I also practice my English and French. When I came back to Peru on December I searched for an exchange group in Lima through Couchsurfing web page, I couldn’t find any.

One of the moderators of Couchsurfing had the idea of doing the first exchange meeting, we were really few people but when I told them about my experience of language exchange meetings in Madrid they got excited about the idea. As the moderator didn’t organize any more meetings I did. Since then every Friday night I organize a language exchange meeting in a bar in a well-known area of the city, and the group grows up every week, mainly Peruvians but there is always someone from abroad and so far everybody enjoys the meetings. Just a couple of weeks ago our group associated with MadridBabel.

The language exchanges meetings take place every Friday at 7:30pm in a bar in Miraflores. Sometimes we organize some other events, for example a guided tour for foreigners around the city


10. ARGENTINA
10.1.1. La Chamuyera - Rosario

Contact : Agustina Diaz - flanty@gmail.com

I registered personally on several websites that offer online language exchange.
From this idea, I begun to organize real-life meetings in a bar cultural center two years ago.

I don’t have an Internet website to promote this idea, but I’m doing it on other websites like Facebook, Couchsurfing and Polyglot Club.
This is a very good way to practice foreign languages and for foreigners who live in Rosario to meet local people and learn Spanish.