“It would be rare for me to arrive into a city and not have a friend who is there to give me a place to crash or a business connection,” said Justin Bedard, the executive director of the JUMP! Foundation. “I can safely say that a considerable amount of JUMP’s development has been fueled by my TCK network.”
“I’ve been so fortunate to see so many different opportunities and have those be a reality if I wanted them,” said Emily Chong, a service officer for Catchafire, a company that matches professions with non-profits. “But what that causes is stasis from too many options, so not ever knowing if I’m ever in the right space.”
“I like how it’s so entirely different from anything I’ve ever done before,” said TCK model Hanna Stagg. “It’s challenging in a way I’ve never been challenged before, you have to put yourself out there and get ready for rejection all the time.”
“I want to make sure my impact on the world is in the most positive manner I can,” Jason Trefts said. “Music is a way for me to release the sadness and try help people feel better as well as myself.”
“Working and living in Haiti, I get a constant feeling of “You just can’t make this shit up,” Tara Yip-Bannicq said. For the past two years, the self-proclaimed “disaster junkie” has traveled around the world to help in humanitarian aid efforts in countries like Haiti and Indonesia.
As expats, we feel the need to support our own countries, countries that we have identified with in the past, or well, teams that we just plain like. As a TCK, I find it hard to support just one team
In four and a half weeks, they covered 6,400 miles and six countries on board “Clutch,” their trusty 12-year-old Peuguot 106, seeing England, France, Spain, Morocco, Senegal and Mali.
This is a series focused on TCKs who contribute to charities while also exploring the world. The first installment explored why TCKs choose these journeys. The second installment will follow a group of TCKs as they embark on their adventure. The Search for Eternal Glory: Adventurists Africa Rally ’09 The goal: Travel from London to Cameroon via car to raise money for Cameroon farmers to receive sustainable farming training and resources such as livestock, seeks and trees. Denizen is an official sponsor of Team UhNoooo, a charity rally team venturing on a rather out-of-the-box excursion. On December 13th, Rezhan Majid, Ryan Nishimoto anda beat-up Peugeot 106 and its 1L engine, will start an arduous 5-week, 10,000 mile journey from London’s Hyde Park to Kribi, Cameroon. What do they want to accomplish? “Eternal glory. The ultimate road trip,” Rezhan said. “Who doesn’t want to get in a car with a good friend and drive a loosely charted course through Europe and Africa? … I hope at the end of it I get some invaluable life lessons …
For many of us, completing university means one thing: figuring out the next step. Whether it’s teaching English in Asia, backpacking across Europe or working for a charity group in Africa, many TCKs hunger to explore as much of the world as humanly possible. What drives us to travel like this? What are we looking for? What are the adverse effects of traveling? And perhaps most importantly, will we ever find whatever it is that we are looking for? We often seek adventure because, from the get-go, our lives are a journey into the unknown. All of us are raised in what some would call ‘unconventional’ circumstances: what is strange and foreign to some is perfectly normal to others. This very concept lies at the core of the mindset of most TCKs. In my opinion, we spend our first twenty-something odd years fighting to find our identity, only to find that the “box” doesn’t actually exist. We learn that the more we experience, the more we are able to adapt to our surroundings and appreciate …
The world is full of young minds making major moves. The Malyka crew is no different. Their mission: engage the young and the restless in community issues while advocating cultural tolerance. With that in mind, they are taking Toronto by storm. Malyka Clothing is a multi-cultural concept created by three young visionaries. Malyka may seem like a clothing label on the surface, but they are a concept, a concept that brings people together to share in a cross-cultural ideal for change and positivity. The three young men, Lavado Stubbs of the Bahamas, 23, Momar Taal of the Gambia, 21, and Fahad Awadh of Tanzania, 22, all met in Canada while attending school. By sharing stories, histories and cultures, their friendship grew, and Malyka was born. Five years later as the Malyka crew has grown from boys to men, so has the brand. Denizen Magazine now takes this oppotunity, from one TCK group to another, to chat to the three wise men as we go behind the scenes of Malyka, and the orgins of the creators …
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