About

 
 

It all started when…

my daughter Ilektra asked me why I was English and I am not Singaporean like her.

I am not English and Ilektra is not Singaporean. I am Greek, so is my husband. Our 6 year old daughter Ilektra was born in Amsterdam and when she was almost three we moved to Singapore. She goes to a French school. I speak to her in English and French and my husband speaks to her in Greek and English.

I started researching what I could say to my daughter about our life of “gypsies”, traveling around the world. That is when I was introduced to the term TCK; Third Culture Kids.

Third Culture Kids are kids raised in cultures different from their parents’ passports. Ilektra lives in Singapore, but she is not really experiencing the Singaporean culture and she does not really experience the Greek one, it is something in between.

I started talking to friends and realised there were others like me, who had no idea about the 250 million TCKs around the world.

The need to bring awareness and gather the stories arose and therefore the creation of the TCK Documentary.

 
 
 

In the TCK documentary we explore the ideas and notions of

  • Identity

  • Belonging. Is Culture what gives us roots?

  • Globalisation has made TCKs more common; and with the rates of globalisation growth, TCKs will become more and more in the years to come.

  • Mobility

  • Language

  • Expanded World View. Because TCK’s have been exposed to more than one country, they have a global perspective. In some ways they may seem more mature and worldly wise than their peers in their passport country. They haven’t just seen countries and people on TV or in a geography book, they’ve actually been there and experienced things first-hand. They’re probably much more interested in travel and the rest of the world than most monocultural kids are.

  • Cross-Cultural Skills. TCK’s have a natural ability to act like chameleons because they have grown up knowing that one changes their behaviour, language, or customs to suit the situation. No one sat down to teach them that, it was something they learned “by osmosis”. As a result, they grew up more culturally sensitive, more aware, more interested in people from other countries and cultures and generally with cross-culturally skills that many adults never acquire who have not traveled overseas until they are adults.

 

ACT 1

We interview Singaporeans  who were raised TCKs and expats who are raising their TCK children in Singapore.

  • How did they “enter” the life of a TCK? What “pushed” them to leaving their country and looking for something else elsewhere?

ACT 2

  • What are the benefits of being a TCK?

  • What are the disadvantages?

  • Personal Stories

  • How do they define identity? How do they experience culture?

  • In this part, we add the voices of experts; psychiatrists, psychologists and coaches explain to us the notion of Identity, Belonging, Loss and Grief.

ACT 3

  • How do they see the future?

  • What do they think the host country is doing well and what could they do better?

  • What advice can they give new TCKs, through their experience?

  • What is more important, the journey or the destination?

If you are a TCK or is raising one and would like to share you story with us to educate and inspire, please contact us by clicking the button below: