The podcast has been going for almost 3 years now and I thought it was a good time to sit back and both review what I've achieved so far and reassess where it's going.
At this point I've done 81 episodes, representing 81 different countries of the world. This seems kind of impressive until I realise I'm not even after halfway after almost 3 years !
On the other hand, it's more than just about the numbers. Out of that 81, I've covered a pretty wide range both geographically and culturally, from Greenland to Samoa and from Argentina to Egypt.
There has also been great diversity in terms of ages and when people have arrived in Tasmania/Australia. There have been some who arrived from
interstate when borders reopened in 2021, and then we can go back to 1950 when Anna arrived from Austria.
My interviewees have also represented an interesting an varied range of experiences and walks of life. From a dermatologist from Canada to a
disability care worker from Tonga and to an opera singer and jeweller from Slovenia.
So, I think I've achieved some goals in terms of finding some diverse and interesting stories, and I hope more people will listen to them.
There have also been both touching and emotional moments and lots of moments of laughter, and I think this is really important as it humanises the stories for the listener who may otherwise identify little with the background or culture of the person speaking.
Having said all that, it's been and continues to take a lot of time and work and often means going on some wild and frustrating goose chases. This is a labour of love rather than paid work, and so at times it can be difficult to maintain motivation to keep going with, especially when other priorities come up. I certainly had hoped I would have done quite a few more episodes by now, and I've realised that it is quite important with a podcast to release episodes at fairly regular intervals to keep your listeners. Unfortuately, I've lost a bit of momentum this year and that has effected listenership, which then effects your motivation...which...well it can become a bit of a vicious circle if you're not careful.
So there have been ups and downs, successes and failures as one would expect. The question is : where to now ? What is my goal ? I'm not sure I can do another 3 years of it, so my goals for now is to hit 100 nationalities by the end of 2023. If I can't achieve that, I think I'll just knock it on the head at the end of this year and set my sights on new projects.
To get to even this seemingly achievable goal, I still need LOTS of help. So if you are from one of the nationalities that I haven't covered yet and would be interested in telling your story, or you know someone who would, I would love to hear from you.
You can email me at marktmigration@gmail.com. Please do just tell me a little a bit about yourself by way of introduction. I've included a bit of a list of some of the nationalities I'm still looking for below.
Albania Algeria Armenia El Salvador
Austria Botswana Bhutan Jamaica
Belarus Burkina Faso Brunei Paraguay
Bosnia Herzegovina Burundi Cambodia Uruguay
Denmark Cameroon Georgia
Estonia Guinea Laos
Kosovo Liberia Lebanon
Latvia Malawi Myanmar
Morocco Singapore
Lithuania Namibia Syria
Moldova South Sudan Taiwan
Netherlands Sudan Tajikistan
Northern Ireland Zambia
Scotland
Spain
Sweden
Cook Islands
Kiribati
Papua New Guinea
Solomon Islands
Vanuatu
And of course, please check out and share the podcast ( and this post ) if you haven't already !