Ambassadors of Diversity
By: Raazia Ali
Tags: Third Culture Kids, Parents And Children, Global Nomads, Globalization

Global Nomads

I’m a middle school teacher at an International K-12 school. We see students from across the world, and this brings a lot of information about their customs and backgrounds. It’s a melting pot of cultures and traditions. Generally the students are well behaved, well mannered, and are focused towards their education and strive hard to do good in their studies. The parents are a strong force that keep the students on track, they are constantly and consistently monitoring their children’s education. The parents are ready to provide any means that is needed to support their children’s learning. Most of our students are third culture kids coming from affluent backgrounds. They belong to somewhere and nowhere. They are coming from a country where they have spent a few months of their lives, they are living in a country that cannot be called their homeland, and their parents have different nationalities. It is a diverse hotchpotch of different colors, different races, and different ethnic backgrounds.

The world where I grew up was entirely different from this world. I grew up in one single country. My roots are buried deep in the ground and my heart aches to the calls of my community. My parents, my grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and friends all belonged to the same village. We played in the same courtyard and grew playing around the trees that still offers shade to the passing pedlars and travellers. I still dance to the folk tunes and folk music of my village. This is the reason people of my age have an impervious personality that doesn’t let go of the ties that we have with the community that we grew up with. We are the people who are culturally and traditionally colorfast.

Whereas third culture kids (TCKs) were born in one country, they go to school in another country, and they go to college in another and start their practical life in some other country. Their blood vessels have the prints of every place they have visited or stayed in. They are pervious and have roots that have absorbed the nutrients from many parts of the world. Their inner seasons are not synchronized with the seasons of their birth country, their songs are foreign, they do not associate to the folk songs and tunes of their parent’s country. However, they have a rich cultural background like a spectrum of colors, where each band of color is acquired from a different soil and their own cultural background joins these bands into a beautiful rainbow. They are true sons and daughters of earth as they are the ambassadors of diversity. There are millions of TCKs in the world and they are living and working in every part of the world. The number of third culture kids is increasing and there will be a time when the world will be bustling with TCKs. And that’s when the ideas of nationalism will fade off and we will see the true face of globalization.

The TCKs can bring positivity to the communities as their experiences are wide spread and entirely different from the people who have not seen a diverse community in their lives. They are flexible and open minded mediators and entrepreneurs who can convince others with their communication and can negotiate important deals with their people management skills.

Some of the skills they possess are,

Flexibility: They are flexible and can fit easily in any situation like the gears of the machine. They make the machine run smoothly and easily.

Mediation: They can be the best mediators, because their blood has absorbed many cultures and traditions of the world. They can play an integral part in resolving the conflict between different communities and societies of the world.

Open mindedness: They are open minded as they know how to deal with the people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. They can relate to the problems and difficulties of people moving from one place to the other.

Diversity: They have a spectrum of colors in their personalities, and they are capable of radiating these colors to every nook and corner of the world. This will not only make the world a better place but it will be culturally rich and colorful.

Entrepreneurs: They can become successful business persons, as they have a unique skill of creating a globalised and multicultural workplace. They are good communicators and often have excellent people management and time management capabilities.

The parents of third culture kids made this choice of leaving their own countries in search of a better livelihood for their families and communities. They were resilient and smart, they did not only survive in the harsh and unfamiliar environment of alien lands, but they made a firm pedestal for their offsprings to get a head start. These global nomads are raised by educated, sensitive and understanding parents who used their intellectual wisdom to come out of their comfort zones (well we know that magic only happens outside the comfort zone) and dream big for their children. This is why the TCKs are emerging as intelligent, resourceful and successful group of individuals who have the capability of changing the world into a better place.