Growing Roots is a podcast about migration, identity, and the places and people we call home.
Episode 11:02:55
Sue arrived from Yorkshire, England at 21 with enough money to buy a car and little left over. Frank’s journey from Scotland took him through South Africa and football pitches. Both found a home in Melbourne.Read more →
Read reflection →People leave one country for another for all kinds of reasons: work, love, family, adventure, or the need for a safer life. What follows is often different from what they imagined.
On Growing Roots, our guests share how they've built a life in a new country, what they've brought with them, and what has changed. We talk about finding belonging, staying connected to family and culture, and the people who make a place feel like home.
Growing Roots is for all of us, who's ever had to plant themselves in foreign soil and pray something beautiful would grow.
The decisions that lead you to a new country, and the life you build there. The moments when everything felt impossible – until it didn't.
The people who saw you for who you are and gave you room to show it. When a conversation turned into a friendship. When someone trusted you with an opportunity. When an unfamiliar place started to feel like home.
We're here to sit with you in the messy middle and hear about the things that turned out better than you imagined.
The grief of leaving. The guilt of staying. The fear of not being enough. The exhaustion of constantly proving yourself. We don't fix these feelings – we honour them.
We also talk about how language, food and family traditions keep you connected to who you are, and help you form new connections. Finding a local restaurant that serves the food you grew up with. Sharing a familiar dish with a new friend. The comfort of discovering that something from home has a place in your new life too.
We understand what it means to carry multiple cultures in one heart. To learn that being grateful and being hurt can exist in the same breath.
This is a space for honest conversations about the friendships, challenges and unexpected moments that shape a new life. There's room for humour, uncertainty, and pride in how far you've come.
Growing roots isn't always graceful. Sometimes it's messy and painful and nothing like what you imagined.
But it's always powerful.
And you? You're more resilient than you know.
Welcome home.