Global Day of Parents - Highlighting Migrant Parents

This #GlobalDayofParents, at Positive Deviance, our minds and hearts are focused on migrant parents. More specifically, the group of migrant parents who entrust the care of their children to others while they seek opportunities in other towns, cities, countries in order to provide for their families and children. 

Louisa Kole. mother, grandmother, nanny. The epitome of Positive Deviance.

These parents send back remittances to their families providing support to both their families and their communities. 

Having lived and worked in the UAE for 14.5 years and now being back in South Africa, I am questioning why our field does not focus on this area more.  Of course we have a significant and important body of work focused on refugees but not, to my knowledge, on migrant parents who choose to leave their homes to support their families.  If we do focus on this at all, it seems that we primarily focus on fathers. However, in the South African context and globally, many mothers also make these choices in order to support their families. (This pattern of migration in SA is of course also tied directly to the history of our country). 

There is a rich potential body of work here. There are so many opportunities to better understand and support migrant parents who leave their children as they navigate long-distance parenting, especially in an age of the tech that we have access to. 

Even more importantly, taking an asset based approach, there are undoubtedly lessons that we could learn from these parents which would add value to parenting programs and knowledge around the world. 

Pictured above is one of the women who raised me, Louisa Kole, or to me, always - Nana. She supported her children by working for my family, she also provided me with so much love and support. I am who I am because of her. Her efforts have led to textbook positive deviance through her children and grandchildren's social mobility,.