The Magic of Community
Exploring third culture kids
Guest post by Grace Spaulding from Kaleidoscope.
Community is such a loaded word.
It evokes different things for everyone:
For some, visceral memories of vulnerability and sharing hard times together.
For others, nightmares of roommates who left dishes growing in a petri dish-like environment (me at times, to be honest!)
For others still, memories with people who have now become some of their best friends.
Living in a community is never easy, but it it is always meaningful, always significant, always worth it, and it can always be fun if done right.
Community is a central pillar of the work we do at our non-profit Kaleidoscope. We run week-long programs for kids who are growing up outside their country of nationality, mostly because of their parents’ work.
These kids grow up in lots of different kinds of circumstances: sometimes they attend international schools with other foreigners, sometimes they’re homeschooled in the middle of the jungle, and sometimes they attend school with nationals, speaking the language with a native accent, only the color of their skin or passport cover giving them away.
