Diaspora, a blessing in disguise

I reacted to the article and resonated with the last Nita Goyal's post on Brain Drain at the Digital Vision program. Let me convey my vision on the topic of the diaspora starting with three very close stories:

Sketch 1. Luisa left a small town to the capital to get the best education she was ready for. Luisa discovered she was not alone. Many other thought alike in this new environment. They did great things together that impacted positively her country later on. Imagine Luisa being restrained to stay in her home community college when she could aspire to go to the best schools of her country. Now change levels: community with country, and country with the world. Luisa is a novel prize.

Sketch 2. Maria and Paul got a 3 year-old. They are both competent IT professionals that graduated from the university in a country with poor management and poor economic performance. Maria barely found a job, Paul got a good one but needs to travel all the time out of the country for consulting engagements. The income they make barely reaches the budget to affort a small apartment 3 hours from the main employment offices. They get 6 hours of traffic everyday. In the top of that they coordinate the care of their child with grandma in the other side of the capital. Forget about having one of them working and the mother educating the child. Result: they leave.

Sketch 3. Sofia is a single mother with 3 children. Sofia left them to the grandma because the father did not committed himself. Sofia has been in Venezuela for 20 years already. She has two daily jobs making as much money as possible as house keeper and restaurant cleaner to send money back to Colombia for the education and care of her darling family. She gets home in the barrio at 1am in the morning and leave again at 7am. Her children finished high school. Two of them are getting IT degrees. At her home town, there are para-military and drog mafias telling the mayor of the town and the communities how to live. I know all these people. They are my friends, the people I care about. Tell me if VISAS, Taxes or anything else will stop them from migrating to get better opportunities. Forget it!

Living this situation in Venezuela myself I have called this: the tragedy of underdeveloped countries when the media, transporation and networking hit to change the landscape forever. Now everybody in Venezuela got access to a cable TV. People see how others live in the world, they compare, make their numbers and things are so bad in their communities that they are willing to leave everything behind and take the risk. I know this first hand over and over. All my social network has desintegrated and is now around the world. It hits me emotionally everytime a friend says "I am leaving." People confined to their countries in the past. More and more, it does not make sense to think of country boundaries in these scenarios anymore. People migrate to survive and increase opportunities for themselves and their children. There is no policy that will change that. Taxes and visas are just another barriers for people who have already managed the worst of them.

Yes, we are loosing our middle and professional class, our talents, our brains, naturally. They are looking for the spot where they resonate, where they thrive and have opportunities for their potential. There is a new global reality that will continue favoring Sillicon Valleys and others. Advances in transportation, Internet and the media hit to accelerate this brain drain.

But in my view, the diaspora and the brain drain will become the platform for an emerging paradigm solution to the problem it created. Stay tune and see what the diaspora in coordination with the home communities are now capable of. Look at these two examples: Indigo Financiera, an initiative by Margarita Quihuis pooling remittances to generate business opportunities back in Mexican communities, and FundVec, the brain child of América Soler-Everhart working form California in the USA to help neighbors build libraries in their home rural communities in Venezuela. We can realize two perspective of this new development force emerging with these two examples. The diaspora is closing the loop in the economic flow in which the wealth in the first world, likely earned in a global marketplace, is distributing itself back to the international communities. People who migrated are now finding ways to give back and fulfill the needs of their home communities.

It takes more than taxes and visa. It takes a particular heart, the sense of ownership and commitment with a community to give back. This is the true force out there. I believe progress created a problem and progress will solve it. Like the bee in the flower, bringing the fruits of its work to its community, the Diaspora represents a blessing in disguise.

Do you agree? Why did you leave? Why did your friend leave? Do they still care about their community? do you?