TCKid is a non-profit organization that serves the community of third culture kid (TCK) and cross culture kid (CCK) adults and youth across geographical boundaries. We also serve to inform the non-TCK and non-CCK, general public and those who serve this community.

TCKid’s mission is to increase and support the individual and general awareness of the TCK experience and unique gifts by facilitating connection and community engagement.

In existence now since 2008, TCKid has a community membership now of over 23,000 and grown to include local chapters around the world in addition to its central virtual community on TCKid.com. The birth and founder of TCKid.com has been featured on the BBC, ABC News, The Telegraph, the U.S Department of Defense and Education Week. Under it’s current CEO, Myra Dumapias, MSW, TCKid was incorporated in 2011 as a non-profit organization and became a 501(c)(3) public charity in November 2013.

 

Vision

1. Provide comprehensive resources to help increase the understanding of the TCK experience and common challenges.
2. Celebrate the unique experiences of TCK’s while fostering a sense of community, self-expression, dialogue, and peer-support. and
3. Support the discovery of unique skills and talents related to the TCK experience and facilitate opportunities for expressing or applying them in various sectors of the community.

 

Whether you are an educator, child development specialist, social worker, a counselor/program manager at a military base, a human resource manager, international entrepreneur or come from another field, we welcome you to be part of a movement of a growing awareness of a population with unique needs and skills.

Third Culture Kids (including adults and youth) may be all around you, yet are invisible because this identity of people who spent a majority of their development years (“Kids” in “Third Culture Kids”) in cultures other their their passport/birth or parents’ culture(s) (“Third Culture”) is still largely marginalized. Frequently moving internationally, adult Third Culture Kids have significant insight, perspectives, and skills that are developed as a result of growing up among worlds.

Yet, these gifts are often not realized until the Third Culture Kid (TCK) discovers that their personal experiences which often lead to a sense of isolation, is shared by many others. For some, this does not happen until their 30’s/ 40’s. Regardless of whether a TCK grew up as a military. foreign service, missionary, corporate, or other “brat,” the resulting effect on identity, relationships and social engagement is the same.

The sense of feeling rootless, the issues of unresolved grief, the high risk for post-traumatic stress disorder if isolated from resources, as well as the tendency towards critical thinking, creative problem solving and extreme sensitivity to world wide human welfare are very common. Although the average TCK has experienced as much loss and grief by the time they reach high school as the average person does in a lifetime, TCK’s also have unique perspectives that can benefit numerous social causes and humanitarian projects.

The implications about this population are many. Join us in raising awareness, resourcing TCK adults & youth and the people who work with them, and connecting TCK’s to worldwide projects where they can apply their skills.

 

Mission

TCKid’s mission is to increase and support the individual and general awareness of the TCK experience and unique gifts by facilitating connection and community engagement.