When I founded SEDA, I confess that the initial focus wasn’t on social impact.
I wanted to create a different kind of English school, one that would help people adapt to a new country, experience new opportunities, and feel welcome.
At the time, the word “impact” seemed distant, linked to large projects or global causes.
But time—and the people who crossed my path—showed me that true impact is born from everyday life, from simple gestures, from the silent transformations that education brings about.
I remember the first group of students who arrived in Ireland full of dreams and insecurities.
Many of them came from challenging backgrounds, and the opportunity to study abroad was, for some, the first big step outside their comfort zone.
In the beginning, the impact seemed to be in language teaching, in technical learning. But I soon realized that what truly transformed these people wasn’t English—it was the confidence that grew with it.
It was the discovery that they were capable, that they belonged, that they could build a new story.
SEDA taught me that social impact isn’t about quantity, it’s about depth. It’s about generating real change in someone’s life.
Sometimes, what changes everything is a conversation, an opportunity, a word of encouragement spoken at the right time. I saw students who arrived shy, insecure, and afraid, and who months later were leading teams, undertaking ventures, teaching others.
That’s the beauty of education—it multiplies. A transformed student changes those around them.
Over time, I realized that SEDA was more than a school: it was a bridge. A bridge between countries, cultures, realities, and dreams.
And each person who crossed that bridge carried a little of that purpose with them.
The impact began to expand naturally—not only in the lives of the students, but also in the communities where we worked, in the families that reconnected, in the companies that began to value diversity and inclusion based on the international experience of these young people.
Today, when I think about social impact, I think about responsibility. Being an entrepreneur means understanding that every decision, every project, every opportunity created has the power to affect lives.
SEDA taught me that profit and purpose don’t have to be on opposite sides. On the contrary — when a business is born from a genuine purpose, it grows sustainably and transforms the world around it.
True social impact, I learned, isn’t about statistics. It’s about people. About stories that change, about paths that open up.
It’s about looking back and realizing that what started as a simple idea ended up becoming a real force for transformation.
And that’s why, for me, SEDA was never just a company. It was — and continues to be — a mission. A way to prove that education is the most powerful seed that exists when what you seek is not just to teach, but to transform.
