Karolina E Stempien

Economist by education, researcher by choice, love and desire to quench my curiosity. I am a seeker, migrant, traveller, visitor, a pilgrim of sort. I am an idea person. An intellectual nomad.

I am of journeying people, migration is in my blood. I am a great-granddaughter, granddaughter and daughter of migrants, IDPs, refugees and repatriates. On both sides of my parental lineages. My ancestors were moving across borders and internally, within Poland, my country of origin.

As a child, I was fascinated by stories of these great movements heard from my relatives. Stories of people they met on their way, places they had seen and experiences that shaped these journeys. Stories of what was before and what was after the great journey.

Now, migration has became part of my own story. So far, I was an internal migrant, student migrant, temporary migrant worker and international migrant. And who knows what other forms of movement my future may hold.

For me, born behind the iron curtain, the possibility of leaving my country meant freedom, denied to my parents. Migration or possibility of it, became for me a powerful act of expression as an individual. Freedom of movement is available to the vast majority of world population but only 3.7% of us decide to take advantage of this freedom.

However, observing various media outlets, one can get the impression that the shores of developed countries are under "invasion" by "swarms" of uneducated, poor, sick, desperate and dangerous people who are coming here "to take our jobs and women".

This state of reality has frustrated me so much that I felt compelled to provide some kind of response to the ignorant assertions and straight out lies endlessly repeated across the media, often with little push back from presenters or the audience. So, for my own sanity and as a future resource for myself and others, I have decided to create Migration Satellite. In here, I would like to show the human face of migration by sharing factual data, stories and images that demystify this widely discussed, yet little understood phenomenon.

I also want to provide a platform for migrants to share their stories and experiences by showcasing them in the Migrants Stories section of this website.

Image

We strive for accuracy in facts checking and fairness in information delivery but if you see something that doesn't look right please leave your feedback. We do not give immigration advice, and nothing in any posts should be construed as such.