thesmartexpat
Mea Culpa!! I have committed the cardinal sin of blogging and have not posted content in quite some time. So I have to thank Tara Sophia Mohr whose Girl Effect Blogging Campaign has blown away my summer inertia and inspired me to start writing again. Having started, I am committing to a more regular schedule (once a week) for writing about issues which affect us as expats and accompanying partners. Watch this space!
Now onto the main purpose of this post – The Girl Effect. As expats, we are often closer than we know to the sharp end of the injustices that girls experience on a daily basis. Although, we and our daughters may not experience those injustices directly, they are often happening around us. Sometimes our experience of living in different cultures and countries simply raises our awareness and makes it a little harder to ignore some of those inequalities.
As accompanying partners, we often find ourselves unable to work. Although we are privileged beyond the wildest dreams of the people in whose communities we live, many of us struggle with the sudden loss of fulfillment that we experienced from careers or hobbies in our home countries. I’ve written before about my involvement with the Josephine Charles Foundation while I lived in Shanghai. While some of the jobs that I did for the foundation were by no means glamourous or intellectually demanding (sorting donated clothing to be sent to children and adults in the remotest areas of Sichuan province springs to mind), I experienced a deep sense of satisfaction doing something which made an immediate and measurable difference to the families and particularly the girls in those communities. The work that I did is not for everyone, but there are many opportunities to get involved with organisations which help the communities we live in and the girls around us. If you are searching for a new sense of purpose in your expat life and have time and skills on your hands, I urge you to consider volunteering some of your time and skills to help an organisation which helps girls. If you’re not familiar with the Girl Effect and their campaign to spread the compelling statistics for investing in girls, check out the video below:
Personal fulfillment and a better world – what’s not to like about that?
Filed under: Accompanying Partners, Career, Fulfillment, Philanthropy, The Expat Experience, The Girl Effect | Tagged: accompanying spouse, career change, Expat, expat life, fulfillment, identity, philanthropy, The Girl Effect | 1 Comment »
