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Expat Brasil
Support and help for expats and their families.
   
 

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What are we for


We define expatriation and repatriation as contemporary forms that immigration may assume. Expats are executives who are sent to other countries with or without their families to serve the needs of their companies. Usually they are not allowed to choose the country. Most of the time these countries that they are sent to are places where they have no network of friends, acquaintances or colleagues, and no working knowledge of cultural reference points. The expats never know how long they are going to stay and usually don’t know where they are going next. This causes anxiety, even anguish. For family members it can even be more difficult because they lack that all important professional link to the company and an acceptance of the supposed career path.

We have some ideas to help face this phenomenon. Our proposal has the goal to provide the expats and re-pats with personal and group resources to better face the challenges. These resources are based on the creation of a “repertoire” so they can name the new experiences and give new directions and meanings to them. We want to encourage the creation of a network where people can tell their stories, share their dreams and sorrows; and at the same time develop rich projects at a personal and family level. Even though it can be temporary, it is useful, and it can be adapted to places other than Brazil.

Sonia Novinsky, Phd - Tania Haberkorn, M.A.
 
 

Our goals 

Help the expats and re-pat to understand and appropriate an immigration that most of the time is not his or her personal choice. 

Help the expats to find their place in the new country. To have a place means to start a process where you have relationships among the local people and in return become significant for those people. In other words, to start a process of where the local people become reference for the expatriates and them to the local people. Reference goes together with memories: the expatriate will be in the memory of the local people and vice versa.

Create a community for people to share their stories, share narratives, and to build a feeling of continuity in relation to their pasts, including their memories of former material possessions – this will eventually include the larger community.
Support the creation of a network that will link expats and re-pat with the local community.
Support the start of a personal project in tune with the ex and re-pat’s dreams, with their own resources, with references from the past and a meaning in the future. We intend, in the expats’s case, that the personal project be transferable to other places. In both the expats and the re-pat’s case, it will be short term


 Create a space where we can have conversations about the difficulties of the arrival in the new place, and then their departure from it. This can help people understand the enigmas of the language and the impact of the different social codes that usually are intense experiences among expats. (Please refer to page 3 where we have scenarios that will help illustrate this.).

 Create a safe environment to be able to transcend the social dimension of most interactions among expats and re-pats. This will be an environment where the experiences shared can be deeper and more personal. Many times the fear of losing people again in yet another move makes expats live on a superficial level without bonding with the local community. They suffer isolation to the point where they may become mentally or physically sick. We believe that to transcend a merely superficial social level can make a difference in the life path and in the emotional health of the person dealing with transition.

We can train people who work with expats and re-pats in schools and companies. For these people, we have an approach for working with executives, human resource personnel, educators, psychologists and social workers.

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 WHO ARE WE

We are social scientists, psychologists and therapists with experience in private practice, schools, companies, and groups. We all have experienced – or are presently experiencing – immigration in difference parts of the world. And because of this we felt the motivation to create a space of sharing, personal growth, information, and the creation of networks that were simply not available in the countries where we had lived.

We are very aware of how important this issue has become as our world moves towards ever more globalization and is forced to consider the experience of the ex-pat and re-pat, especially in the case of executives and their partners and children. These families need to face big challenges that can or cannot enrich their lives: such as the loss of their roots, loss of personal projects, cultural shock, longings, disorientation, language barriers, and a lack of resources to deal with strong emotional, cultural and social experiences . All of this is part of the daily process for expats and re-pats.

In the conception of this project we were inspired by the theory and clinical work of Dr. Gilberto Safra, from the Institute of Psychology at the University of São Paulo, Brazil

 
 

 Our Profile  
ExpatBrasil is directed by Sonia Novinsky and Tania Haberkorn and has the participation of other professionals as necessitated by the project.

Sonia Novinsky, PHD

 Sociologist and clinical therapist. Graduated from University of São Paulo (USP). She holds a Ph.D. in studies of immigration and uprooted people.

She developed a methodology to support the creation and implementation of personal projects. Editorial Director of Edições Sobonorst. EFT Master (Emotional Freedom Technique); CBT (Certified Bioenergetics Therapist). She also was a professor at USP and ESPM (Marketing School). Earlier she was the director of marketing research for Editora Abril, major publishing house in Brazil.

Tânia Haberkorn,
MA, LMFT

 Clinical psychologist specialized in immigration in the U.S. She graduated from PUC-SP (Catholic Univesity, São Paulo). She holds a Masters degree from Antioch University - Los Angeles.
She is licensed as a marriage family therapist (M.F.T) by the state of California. She worked in the U.S. in private clinical practice, with schools and governmental agencies and focused on children and cross-cultural couples. Tania is also a yoga therapist from Phoenix Rising Yoga and ex-facilitator of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League).


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