Our ‘Mygration Story’ series tracks the family histories of staff and fellows at UNU. The aim is to show that many of us owe our lives and careers to the courage of migrant ancestors. People who left their homes to build safer or better lives — for themselves and for their children. With this monthly series we want to show that migration is not an historical aberration, but a surprisingly common element in family histories worldwide.
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“I was born in Uganda, I am Rwandan, but I grew upin South Africa.” This is my standard response to the question “Where are you from?” – because I genuinely feel like I am from all three countries.
My parents met in Kampala, Uganda as students and young professionals; she in the travel industry and he embarking on a career in government that would later be the driving force behind the family’s collective migration a first, second and third time. My mother had already experienced her first migration. Born in Byumba, a city in northern Rwanda, her family fled conflict in the early 1960s to neighbouring Uganda when she was around 2 years old. FULL STORY