Some of you may have noticed this hashtag floating around the “Twittersphere” during the past few weeks. A social campaign meant to raise awareness on the benefits of migration and dispel myths concerning mobility, #migrantscontribute has been making the rounds on Twitter, spearheaded by the International Organization for Migration. Just yesterday, Laura Thompson, Deputy Director General of IOM, delivered a speech at a conference in Brussels titled “A World on the Move: The Benefits of Migration.” In my opinion, it is brilliant and highly worth a read-through. Click on the title to read the full speech, but until then, let me leave you with my favourite tidbit that I feel sums up the direction of mobility in this world, a direction which seems to scare many people, when it should not.
“The XXI Century is the century of human mobility and migration. We can no longer think about our economies, societies or cultures without thinking about human mobility.”