Last month, we launched a social media campaign to explore with our community the meaning of HOME. We were delighted to see so many responses (short stories, quotes and testimonials) coming from WBGFN members living in different parts of the world. A big thank you to all who generously shared their thoughts with us.
Chantale Holzman (Austria)
Home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically.
Vanessa Sanchez (Colombia)
For me Home is where your loved ones are; places where you feel you belong because you are safe, loved, and motivated. That's why I believe you can have many homes at once, especially when you relocate many times. The problem is you also need to build a new home every time you move because it's not only about finding a house but about creating and re-creating bonds.
Joyce See (Singapore)
Home for us is where we feel safe, made to feel welcome and belong, where there are familiarity and memories that remind us of our life journey. It is not defined by a mailing address or years of dwelling. Instead, it could be a place we stopped by for a warm cup of tea or a community of people we met momentarily.
Catharina Maria van Ravensberg
Home is where my, after 10 international moves, battered furniture is my world.
Catherine Mathieu (Brazil / France)
Home is where I get my comfort food.
Cecilia Neher (Argentina)
Home is where I put my kids in bed.
Robin Pascoe (Canada)
Home is where I don’t have to explain myself.
Beverly Brar (India / UK)
For me, having lived in 11 different countries, the truest perspective on Home is the one by author Marilyn Gardner, which heads the Home (?!) Page of our ToolsToMove website. Wherever I live at any time becomes one more home, and holds all of these elements.
“OUR HOMES ARE DEFINED BY MEMORIES, EVENTS, PEOPLE, AND PLACES THAT SPAN THE GLOBE.”
Qudsia Zafar (Pakistan)
HOME is a place and a moment, which we create for shelter, nurturing love and everlasting peace!!!
Bushra Abbas (Pakistan)
Home is where your loved ones live. It’s a place you crave to go back to. It is indeed home sweet home after traveling across the globe. A place for the body and mind to be at peace.
Barbra Nayiga Mukuve (Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo)
Home is my husband and our daughter. This is because with them am fully at peace, rested, known, loved and allowed to morph into my purpose. Wherever I am with them, I am home. Every place in the world we move to creates and adds to our experience of home.
Alexa Harris (USA)
I think home is a feeling of comfort that we continuously work to create for our children and take with us like a turtle shell to protect us from the vulnerability of a mobile lifestyle. As an adult TCK (third culture kid), my perspective of home changed over time and I realized it’s more about people than places- mainly, it was where my people were that felt like home. Of course, many of us have people scattered around the world and sometimes it’s a challenge to stay close. I do think it’s good to know about your home countries and cultures, and I sometimes envy people who have very strong roots in one place. It’s a learning experience and a challenge, but it’s also very valuable for our kids to be exposed to different countries and cultures and not see things from one point of view.
Rukhsana Naz Khattak (Pakistan)
Home is a place where you are yourself, you are at ease and surrounded by your loved ones. You are the most comfortable at your home and feel safe and protected. No place in the whole world can give you this feeling of home than the home itself.
Laurent Cinot (France)
The place where we meet as a family, where we have our personal items, souvenirs, safe. It's one that we have decorated together and that we like, where everyone has a space and where we have common places with memories, linked to the object but not necessarily to the geographical location or the building.
Lola Vico (Spain)
In my case, home is the place where I stand. Having left my country many years ago, I have gathered pieces of various places I have lived before to create a home that is still a work in progress, an ongoing project where I keep adding upgrades, making improvements, and corrections.
Daniela Diaz Figueroa (Urugway)
Home is the place where I find comfort at the end of a tough day, the space where I am fully accepted and loved for who I really am, the people who make my heart go warm.
Home is the country that welcomes me at the time, no matter my geographical location, the friends I make along the way, the memories my family gets to share.
Home is where I am right now, always.
Svetla Dancheva (Bulgaria)
Home is where the family and friends are always around you! :)