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shannonc4

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Hi all,

Hubby (Albrough) and I decided that it would be a good idea to journal our experiences so far. It's quite humbling to see how far you've come and hopefully it will reassure some of you.

Getting to that point...

We met through a dating site on Facebook in 2008 and shortly after we met, we decided that we wanted a bit of an adventure; we were young enough and had nothing holding us back in RSA so started looking at different options. We looked at working on yachts, cruise liners, the water parks in Dubai and lastly OZ. I had always had this strong pull towards OZ and after sharing this idea with Albrough, we decided to look into it. We had our first assessment with André Burger & Associates in September 2008. At that point, it didn't look good. We were told that I had a degree but no experience and Albrough had to much experience and no degree. So... we forgot the notion and decided just to press on and make the best of our situation in RSA.

In 2011 we spent a weekend in Cape Town were Albrough proposed and from there, we started planning or wedding. In July of 2012, after being broken into and dealing with :censored: out of our control and Albrough seeing 2 dead bodies on the way to work in the space of a week, we decided to re-look at OZ but decided to wait until after our wedding.

The process...

We were married on the 1st of September that year and soon after our wedding we got stuck into researching immigrating to OZ. I had spent many nights researching points and doing all sorts of on-line tests and by chance, a week later, Reuven from Migrate2OZ called us. He did a quick assessment and gave us some guidance on which visa would be most suitable; after chatting about it for awhile we decided to appoint him as our agent in late October. From there we quickly started getting our paper work together in order to start our application. We were applying for either a 189 or 190... depending on IELTS.

Two of the major challenges we had were getting my SACE certificate (PM myself or Albrough if you are a teacher and need some guidance) and achieving the illusive 8 in all four IELTS academic components. You would think that being an English teacher and having a degree in English that this would be easy... It sucked! We found IELTS to be very subjective and after missing out on the 8 in all four components by 0.5 in one of the components (always a different area) on all three occasions. We decided to stick with the 10 points and apply for state sponsorship. When we started the process, there was no state sponsorship fee for ACT so decided that ACT would be the better option.

After all of that, we sent off my skills assessment and waited... and waited... and waited. In week 6, AITSL requested a UNISA document stating teaching hours, level of teaching and practical dates. This was going to prove to be difficult. I visited UNISA 4 times over the next week and was simply told the same thing each time: "We don't do that". At this stage UNISA had also gone virtual, meaning that you could not contact them telephonically any more. By chance, again, I found my old UNISA login details and password and attempted to email every single lecturer I had been appointed to, for help. It took two days before I was contacted by Martin van Staden. He was incredibly helpful and within 24 hours my document was on its way to AITSL.

After another gruelling 10 week wait we received a positive skills assessment and were now ready to lodge our State sponsorship application. We received the ACT documentation from Reuven and were gob smacked. There was now a $300 application fee and the paperwork was almost a ream thick. Just reading through it made us worry and reconsider our decision.

The next day I contacted Reuven about our options. We could either wait until the end of the year when I would qualify for 5 extra points for work experience and then go the 189 route or fill out the reams and reams (slightly exaggerated) of paperwork, essays and research on jobs, housing and suburbs in order to go to ACT. At this point Albrough also realised that the ACT job market for his skills were severely limited as you would need security clearance to work in most IT jobs which would require citizenship.

Reuven then suggested that we look at NSW as their state sponsorship had just reopened; so within 48 hours we had the 7 page NSW forms filled out and ready to be posted.

It took exactly four weeks for our State sponsorship to come through (we were told 12 weeks) and by that stage we were ready to lodge our visa application. Our application was lodged and paid for on the 15th of October 2013; we now started on our PCC's (what an abortion) and medicals.

When going to Alexandra Police station to do our finger prints, we were very surprised at the service we received. The most pleasant and helpful man did everything for us and we were in and out within 20 minutes. This was the only positive experience with PCC's. They were ready with in 2 weeks but when my father went to collect them, he was made to wait and hour and was then promptly told that they were gone. After fighting with them on the phone for another week, Albrough was told that because we did not fetch them on the day that they were finished, they had been lost and that it was our fault (YAY for the competency of the RSA police service).

We had to have them reissued which also turned into a game of he said she said. No body would help us and we had the phone put down in our ears on numerous occasions. FINALLY my - Ice salesman to the Eskimos - father, sweet talked our PCC's out of the same woman who had constantly put the phone down on us. During this time we had also had our medicals done in Durban, what a stress free and pleasant experience.

48 hours later we had a CO and it all went quite quickly from there. We were assigned a CO on a Friday morning and Received our Visa grant on the Monday morning. Thanks Hong Lov!

Now we are anxiously waiting the day Albrough gets to resign (I have already) and we leave for our great adventure. E-tickets received, accommodation in Randwich booked and paid for and we flight out on my birthday :ilikeit: I think that's a sign as it was the cheapest ticket we could get.

Thank you all for your constant support and help over the last year. :yourock:

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Well done Guys, that's a lot to have done, but I guess the real work starts when we get there...

Strongs to you both, and best of luck with the transition!!!

Trev

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Thanks Trev. Good luck to you too, hope that grant letter arrives for you guys soon

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  • 4 months later...

I have resurrected a web site I had spare to blog and share our Australian Journey. So please visit our site and have a read.

If there are any people in Sydney who would like to meet up please either PM Shannonc4 or myself :)

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I have resurrected a web site I had spare to blog and share our Australian Journey. So please visit our site and have a read.

If there are any people in Sydney who would like to meet up please either PM Shannonc4 or myself :)

Nice blog! You'll be glad you kept it. Btw you need to edit your heading on there. It says 'leaving SAfrica to move to SAfrica'. Or someting along those lines :) Edited by Bronwyn&Co
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Nice blog! You'll be glad you kept it. Btw you need to edit your heading on there. It says 'leaving SAfrica to move to SAfrica'. Or someting along those lines :)

*Fixed :) thank you

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