Author Topic: another newbie: hi from sunny cape town (Read 684 times)

bardey · « **on:** September 21, 2009, 10:21:44 AM »

Hello to everyone on the forum,

Thank you for a lot of interesting stories and good tips on a much-needed website

I've been reading quite a lot of the posts and have finally decided to "come out of the woodwork" !

My husband and I have decided to make the move and have chosen NZ. We've been "um-ming"
and "ha-ing" for about a year or so, and even thought of going to Canada. However with all the changes to Canadian immigration policies of late, we didn't seem to qualify.

My DH is in his early fifties and I'm mid-forties; so we decided: it's now or never! Luckily, we don't have any kids, although my husband has 2 grown-up kids from his previous marriage.

We spent the week-end past at a seminar/meeting with a rep from Immagine immigration consultants. Really nice info, quite reassuring for us "oldies". However, I am concerned about the cost of using an agent - I know we will need that money in NZ when we land

But at the same time, our points are just-just ( about 120 according to the agent ), and I'm scared that if we do the process on our own, we'll be denied PR because we might not know "special" in-and-outs

.
Our application is for PR ( Skilled Migrant Category ) without a job offer at present

I intend to be the principle applicant as I'm the younger, and have a qualification "accepted" by NZ ( BA in Eng & Psych ) from UCT- accepted in theory, that is. Because I'm wishing to claim for my teacher's diploma, I'll be needing some kind of assessment done by NZQA, apparently.
I'm hoping that because NZ immigration have listed secondary teachers as a LSS, I'll be able to get in just with my qualification....

However: I haven't taught in 20 years

The school situation in SA has been getting worse and worse and one fears for one's life

But, I've been involved in ADULT training in an office-administrative way
1) at an in-house training dept for a large corporate in SA
2) at a national medical tertiary research dept

My husband, on the other hand, has a Btech ( transport management ) and this needs to be assessed by NZQA, apparently.
He's got qualifications in Health, Safety and Environment, as well as ISO 9001 - Quality management lead auditor experience from a big parastatal; and also being a site-manager for Cape Town's museum ( the one in the Gardens ) with a staff complement of about 10 people reporting to him, giving him Management experience ( hopefully this counts for something...)

Anybody out there with with a similar story? How have you guys coped? I'm starting to feel a bit desperate as Australia is out of the question in terms of PR, too - we're too old, for one thing!!!

Cheers,

bardey

maanhaarleeu · « **Reply #1 on:** September 21, 2009, 10:59:30 AM »

Hi bardey and very welcome to the forum!
Thanks for the introduction.
We got PR and my wife is a home executive

So it goes without saying that the person with
the most points should be the main applicant.
I'm also not sure how much if any a spouse also
with qualifications help in an application.
Some people prefer doing the whole immigration
process themselves and it can definately be done.
We chose to use an emmigration agent who sorted
out all the docs for us as I felt I didn't have the time
to do it and also did not wanted to take a chance of
getting something wrong. In the end through our agent
we got our PR in about 6 months

Choice is yours because on the other hand one does
save money.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

SA Going to NZ Advice Forum · « **Reply #1 on:** September 21, 2009, 10:59:30 AM »

frodo/maya · « **Reply #2 on:** September 21, 2009, 12:17:52 PM »

Hi Bardey

to the fam.

We are doing the whole thing ourselves and the NZ immigration website is loaded with information on the how's and where's. We just felt that you do all the work for the immigration agent and they get the money........ which for me was just too much, but that is only my opinion.

My husband is the principal applicant but I have a qualification as well and if I remember correctly we did get a little bit of points for my qualification.

Good luck and keep us updated!

Harm · « **Reply #3 on:** September 21, 2009, 12:42:50 PM »

Hi Bardey

My 2c worth. We did it ourselves and with medical issues etc we got the PR in 14 months from EOI to Approval in principle. The NZIS (INZ) are very helpful. I saved all that money. You will still have to run around gathering the documentation etc yourself.

with your decision.

Harm

tmprince · « **Reply #4 on:** September 21, 2009, 02:26:15 PM »

We did all ours by ourselves as well so touch wood all is ok.
the support and comaraderie on this forum have been a pleasure and all very informative (untill they start sqabbling about rugby that is

) but always entertaining

JAMOMA · « **Reply #5 on:** September 21, 2009, 03:02:59 PM »

Bardey

We attended a seminar & meeting with them too (then call Protea Pacific) - that got the ball rolling for us. They are very well known with a good success rate from what I hear.

But the fees

So we decided to do it our selves. It is pretty simple. Please just make sure you know all the
facts and do's and don'ts if you want to do it yourself. An agent is experienced in this and know the pit falls - that is what you pay them for. Do lots of reading here

You still have to get all the paperwork yourself and they do not get special treatment at NZIS,
so your application will be treated all the same whether you submit it yourself or through an agent. I just felt that if we had to do 90% of the work anyway, why did we have to pay them
100% of the fee

Either way, as long as you get there!

Cheers
Jenny

Edwin · « **Reply #6 on:** September 21, 2009, 08:54:30 PM »

SA Going to NZ Advice Forum · « **Reply #6 on:** September 21, 2009, 08:54:30 PM »

Werner · « **Reply #7 on:** September 21, 2009, 10:19:32 PM »

Bardey. I would suggest you get your qualifications evaluated 1st. Once you have all the necessary paperwork and read EVERTHING you are more than capable of doing it on your own. We did it and got PR within 7 weeks of submitting our ITA.

and keep us posted.

Anna007 · « **Reply #8 on:** September 21, 2009, 10:37:59 PM »

Hi and

Bardey !

We used an agency, and for us it was worth it, as we did not have the time or knowledge to do it ourselves. But many people do it themselves without any worries.

Nolan · « **Reply #9 on:** September 22, 2009, 07:52:32 AM »

guys,

with the application, please keep us posted

ryanrich · « **Reply #10 on:** September 22, 2009, 08:30:43 AM »

Welcome!

Immagine is very good. In fact I was supposed to meet up with Iain on Sunday on his trip to Cape Town, but couldn't make it, so will be seeing Chris is November. Agent fees are always pretty expensive, but it's the price you pay for that piece of mind that everything is being done by the book, because you don't want to make any little mistakes which could delay the process even more.

I'm still deciding whether to use an agent again or do it all myself since I know the process by now.

Good luck with everything, keep us updated...

El · « **Reply #11 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:20:15 AM »

Hi and welcome to the site.

My step mom (late 40's creeping into 50's) was a music teacher many years ago. She has since retrained as a lawyer. She had her teaching qualification assessed and after submitting the EOI was immediately selected. Her experience was obviously outdated but it did not hinder her from being selected because teaching was (is?) on the skills shortage list.

We used an agent to process our visas but found that I wanted to know all about the process anyway, what other migrants experience etc so in hindsight I would do it myself next time. Your curiosity has brought you to this site, where you will find much information & the NZIS website is also very helpful. If we had the R20,000 that we spent on agents fees now.... well! Imagine what we could do with that!

Good luck with the next few months!

SA Going to NZ Advice Forum · « **Reply #11 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:20:15 AM »

Wayno · « **Reply #12 on:** September 22, 2009, 09:29:40 AM »

&

bardey · « **Reply #13 on:** September 22, 2009, 11:36:56 AM »

Hi to everyone,

Thanks for all the replies - we've certainly got a lot to think about in the next few days while deciding to go the agent route or not.....

I think the best will be to make a pro's and con's list for both options and then just go with the option that has the most pro's !!!!

Arrgggghhhh, sometimes I feel like the best would be to toss a coin instead ;-)

On to a different train of thought, though. Is there a discussion thread that deals with teaching and being a teacher in NZ, specifically a pre-school teacher ( Montessori method ) ?
What people's experiences have been like coming over and teaching...

I've read through the "schools and studying" link, but it's not exactly what I'm searching for...

Any assistance in this regard would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
bardey

Snoozy · « **Reply #14 on:** September 22, 2009, 12:16:23 PM »

It's rough over here. My wife had taught in South London, UK for 2 years, then a year at a rough school in SA, then came over here and lasted 2 weeks before she quit - cause the kids were just unmanageable, rude - just ridiculous with lack of respect and swearing etc. Admittedly that was teenagers (13), but heard from a friend last week that she was sworn at in class while trying to teach grade 1's. It's sad but it's something to mentally prepare for... Just my opinion at least - others have had better experiences...

SA Going to NZ Advice Forum