Meet The Team
Wawa
President & Co-founder
A graduate of Beijing Language & Culture University, the University of Manchester and the University of Edinburgh, Wawa has an academic background in Linguistics and Social Sciences. After graduation, she spent 6 months volunteering in Kenya, Tanzania & South Africa and further completed a traineeship with UNESCO in Cameroon. Her experience in Sub-Saharan Africa has cultivated her goal in improving people’s lives wherever she is. Wawa has developed a culturally diverse mindset that she hopes she could motivate more people to care for global matters.
Kathy
Co-founder & General Manager
After graduating from the University of Macau with a degree in Law, Kathy further pursued her studies in Portugal and Spain. Later, she completed a traineeship with the Culture sector of UNESCO in Peru. Her precious memories and encounters when touring around the world will accompany her for life, and also make her reflect a lot on the power of cultures. Culture being a link between human beings and the world, Kathy pushes for "harmony in diversity" and the development of cultural industry in local society.
Lisa
Co-founder & Communication Manager
After graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in Communications and Visual Arts, Lisa completed a traineeship with UNESCO in Peru. Inspired by her travels and her background growing up in Honduras, she wanted to bring in a different perspective to Macao.
Along with the LECPA team she hopes to share with the community the diverse cultures and languages that surrounds Macao.
our story
In September 2018, we returned to Macao after completing our 12- month traineeship programme with UNESCO in Cameroon and Peru respectively. At that time, we had broadened our horizons and noticed something we didn‘t notice before - there were actually different communities residing in Macao, but they seemed to live in pararell worlds and barely interwined. Is there a way for us to bring these communities together?
On Oct 11th, 2018, we started organizing language exchange events regularly. To our surprise, we have attracted participants from many countries, and our abilities to actively engage diverse communities have improved along the years. Through exchanges, we found that "fish really don't know they're in water". After educating ourselves about world cultures, we deepen our understanding of cultural traditions we once took for granted and enhance our sense of identity with our own cultures.
In 2019, we decided to formally establish Language Exchange and Cultural Promotion Association (LECPA) in Macao, and strive to promote the exchange and integration of global languages and cultures. This includes promoting language learning, which is not only an important advantage for career development, but also allows people to better understand the cultures of different countries.
At the same time, we organize cultural events to cultivate the basic ability of "cultural learning and international understanding", allowing more people to understand their own traditional culture and the cultural diversity, cultivate cultural empathy, and expand world views. We believe that cultural diversity is not a barrier, but brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.
We hope that by creating a platform where everyone can get to know each other better and form friendships, we will slowly dismantle unfair stereotypes towards people with cultural backgrounds different from our own. "Harmony in diversity" is the core value we strive to promote.