Dialogue Social Enterprise

Dialogue Social Enterprise (DSE) is an awareness-raising social franchising company offering exhibitions and business training in total darkness, creating jobs for the blind, disabled and disadvantaged worldwide. Its exhibition uses blind guides to lead visitors through settings in total darkness where they learn to interact without sight, helping change mind sets on disability. Over 7 million visitors from 30 countries have experienced the exhibition, giving 7,000 blind people jobs since 1988.

The main business branches of DSE are the Dialogue in the Dark and Dialogue in Silence exhibitions. In the first exhibition, blind guides lead visitors through a completely dark environment where one learns to interact by relying on other senses. The blind and partially-sighted guides open the visitors' eyes in the dark to show them that their world is not poorer but simply different. Since 1988, Dialogue in the Dark has been presented in more than 31 countries and 127 cities throughout Europe, Asia and America. More than six million visitors worldwide have experienced the exhibition so far, while it has employed thousands of blind individuals.

Dialogue in Silence is an exhibition that invites the visitor into a world of silence. Here, deaf guides lead small groups of visitors, creating a reversal of roles: hearing people discover their repertoire of non-verbal expressions used to communicate creatively via mime, gesture and body language. Deaf people, already competent in these skills, support the process and become ambassadors of a fascinating universe without sound. First presented in Paris in 2003, Dialogue in Silence has since opened in 10 countries, with more than 210,000 people having visited the exhibition.

In addition to these two exhibitions, DSE also creates business workshops to improve the quality of human interactions. The underlying paradigm is derived from the German-Jewish philosopher Martin Buber's work, The Principles of Dialogue, which states that the only way to learn is through encounter. The workshops provide an innovative and powerful tool for human resource development, leadership training and team building.