About Us

We are a team that came together with the purpose of contributing to the enhancement and preservation of the authenticity of places in Portugal. To this end, we involve the local community through networking, with the aim of making Portugal a destination of Cultural Immersion.

OUR VISION

We want to satisfy the needs of our visitors without forgetting or obstructing those in the governing regions, protecting them and expanding their future opportunities. We do this through a set of experiences of immersion and sustainable tourism (idiomatic and literary) in order to make people more aware, autonomous, supportive and that responsibly assume the plurality of languages ​​and cultures.

We want to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development. A world aware of its social problems and with solutions based on the recognition of its diversity and identity, an action for inclusion and a glocal thinking.

WHO WE ARE

WHAT WE DO

Stay to Talk – Cultural Immersion Institute is a social impact institution, based on the 2030 Agenda, created with the purpose of promoting and relating areas such as:

OUR JOURNEY

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OUR PARTNERS

quote

Everything seems impossible until it`s done. (Nelson Mandela)

AND WE BELIEVE THAT WE DO BETTER IN PARTNERSHIP.

CAROLINA MENDES

CEO and Founder

PhD in Educational Sciences with a major in Educational Management and Administration from the Catholic University of Porto (2017), Master in Educational Sciences from the University of Lisbon and graduated in Primary Education from the Polytechnic Institute of Portalegre.

She has been pursuing her academic and professional activity in Portugal, Angola and Guinea-Bissau, highlighting: (1) the duties of teacher, coordinator and teacher trainer and adult training in Angola and Guinea; (2) experience in higher education teaching and supervising internships for teacher training; (3) experience of co-ordination of Portuguese Cooperation projects with the PALOP and consultancy and evaluation of adult training and international cooperation projects (4) business experience in Angola and Portugal in the areas of Education and Tourism.

She is the general director and founder of Stay to Talk – Instituto de Imersão Cultural (2017), a company of tourist animation and cultural programming that, by its definition and performance, has been considered a Sustainable and Social Innovation Project that is bringing to Portugal a new concept of tourism – idiomatic tourism implemented on a community basis. She likes reading and her passions are people and research.

RAQUEL MEIRINHOS

Linguistic Facilitator

Law degree from the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, with a major in European Studies (2007). She deepened her contact with languages ​​by developing immersion learning in the local contexts and direct contact with the locals, collaborating with Amnesty International, first in Porto and then in London (2008). She worked at the Amarante Judicial Court and carried out European Volunteer Service in France (2011). She has been the English teacher at the Third-Age University of Amarante since 2014. Due to her experience with other people, her love of travelling and her extensive knowledge of languages, she joined Stay to Talk in 2018, leading the translation service in the Language Department. She loves travelling and volunteering is a passion.

SOFIA MESQUITA

Cultural Mediator

Master’s in History and Heritage, major in Heritage Mediation, from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto (2019) and a degree in Tourism from the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro (2015).
Two curricular internships – in the Interactive Tourism Store of Penafiel (2014) and Soares dos Reis National Museum (2014) were the first experiences in the job market.
After completing her degree, she worked as an interpreter guide for a tourist entertainment company, in Miragaia, for a year.
It was followed by five years of experience in the hotel industry as a receptionist and employee of a countryside hotel.
She believes heritage defines a people´s identity and defends the importance of research projects. In 2021 she joined Stay to Talk`s team as a cultural mediator.
She enjoys reading poetry, history books, photography and going for long walks in nature.

EducaTION

1 – We promote translation services and language teaching, (face-to-face sessions, online and / or through practical learning experiences).

2 – We develop training programs costumized to your needs, always with a practical and differentiating complement, which is to live Local Cultural Immersion Experiences.

3 – We carry out heritage education activities for different target groups, among others, families, schools and other educational institutions, as a local development strategy.

In this way, we propose to raise awareness not only to visitors, but also to the local community to the value of local identity, bringing different cultures closer together, promoting a better understanding among people and strengthening peace in the world.

Tourism

1 – Stay to Talk is a social impact institution with the main purpose of helping Portugal to become a sustainable tourism destination.

We believe that our action will contribute to the generate jobs and fair opportunities for locals, for the appreciation of traditions, culture and nature conservation.
We are proof that tourism can be a good experience for both tourists and locals.
2 – In Portugal, we are pioneers in Community Based Tourism based on values and practices of sustainable, cultural and creative tourism.

3 – We work with Portuguese culture and language through Literary and Art Tourism, always carried out in proximity to the local community implemented over a network of community cultural agents.
Thus, we propose to network in Tourism and Culture, adopting a cooperative stance in order to promote governance that encourages the economic and social development of the contexts where Stay to Talk intervention is felt.

INVESTIGATION

1 – We collect and treat evidence of local culture in order to embody original cultural products that can be experienced by those who seek them, namely, narratives of houses with history, structuring of tourist products, among others, consultancy.

Therefore, we propose to know the context in a scientific way, studying and collecting cultural evidence in order to work with a social purpose, namely, to involve communities and contribute to local development, inclusion and social cohesion.