Tom & Emily Lahdenranta: COVID Refugees

“I realized they would rather let us be homeless and begging on the street than not do what we are told. And to me that was so wrong and so evil that I was like, if they can do that, they wouldn’t have any issues taking our kids away if they decided we were unfit to parent them based on whatever they decided.”

Tom and Emily Lahdenranta made the ultimate commitment to ‘voting with their feet’ when they sold their house and possessions in British Columbia and moved with their three young children to Central America.

Their move to a better life was triggered by Canada’s strict COVID-19 restrictions, which meant that, amongst other things, Emily was fired from her nursing job on account of her choice not to take a mandatory vaccine.  This situation, combined with what they considered to be the unacceptable and increasingly authoritarian trajectory of their own government, compelled them to leave their home country for Mexico, beginning a quest to find a place in which they felt they had the freedom to raise their family in the manner to which they aspired.

Over a year later, that place turned out to be El Salvador, where they now live.

We spend most of this conversation talking about the path that brought them to this point as well as the trials and tribulations of life as ‘COVID refugees’.

Tom and Emily’s story is both shocking and hugely inspirational. They recount their experiences openly and give a fascinating insight into what it takes to make a bold move like this successful.