Single-minded success - Settlement Support

I still think of us as Germans, but this is our home…
Australia didn’t excite them, so they retraced their steps and
returned to New Zealand for the winter, spending their time
finding out about starting a business here and preparing their
immigration application. Uwe is a qualified electrician and he
soon found employment that allowed the couple to settle here
as skilled migrants. After a quick trip to Germany to pack up
their apartment, Julia and Uwe were back and up to their ears
in planning a bold new project.
Julia’s hospitality management and economics qualifications
meant she was well prepared for running a café. While Uwe
provided them with an income, Julia started to research the
planning and permit process. ‘We were surprised that for such
a small country, you definitely have at least as many rules as
we have in Germany! We went to the counter at Whangarei
District Council offices endless times and it was really nice,
you can sit down on a sofa and talk with someone. It was just
really helpful for us trying to find our way through.’
Uwe adds, ‘At the beginning it was a bit difficult, to find out
about settling. There was not really a place that you could go
to. We spent a lot of time on the internet reading the immi-
26 LINKZ | ISSUE 48 | 2011
gration website. German friends helped us too. A real estate
agent that we met when we were backpacking here – she gave
us a lot of information.’
‘The Whangarei Growers Market is another place we met
Germans,’ adds Julia. ‘You stand in front of the German bread
stall and then you bump into some other Germans and once
you start it’s like a chain reaction.’
Just as the café opened, Julia discovered she was pregnant.
When Lucas was born he slept in a cot beside the servery while
his parents worked. The following two years were non-stop.
‘Having a small business in the middle of nowhere, you just
end up doing everything yourself and with a new baby – and
a new house, we never really got to think about settling. Now,
after three years, both of us got to the stage of thinking ... hang
on, what are we doing, where are we going? We didn’t really
have a social network; we were too busy doing everything else.
And that’s when we started looking around for things to do.’
‘We saw an advertisement for Settlement Support in the newspaper,’
remembers Uwe. ‘That’s when we started to get involved.’
Since then the couple have attended a number of events.