What’s this blog all about?

First let me state that I am not am Immigration Adviser: I don’t have a license and I don’t give immigration advice. I am a New Zealand migrant and moved to Christchurch with my family in 2000. It wasn’t easy and I learnt a lot.

Since 2005 I have been working to help support and inform people thinking of moving to New Zealand and in the process have have learned a great deal more.

I don’t encourage people to move to New Zealand, instead I aim to inform and support people who have decided to.

This blog is intended to help you if you are living in New Zealand or thinking of moving here.

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Good information
Research is the key to success, but most people thinking about moving to New Zealand have a difficult time getting what they need: real-life, unbiased information to help them make informed choices.  We are working to make a difference to that.

In 2005 my wife Tammy and I launched move2nz.com to bring together information and expertise on a wide range of areas important to new, settled and prosective migrants. This site also is home to a massive friendship network linking people from all over the world for greater support with around a third of the 33,000 members living in New Zealand.

move2nz.com was voted New Zealand’s Best Community Website in the prestigious People’s Choice NetGuide Web Awards in both 2008 and 2009.

Migrant Centre
Realising the majority of newcomers were encountering problems in 2006 we set up, funded and ran our own dedicated and completely free Centre for Migrants – New Zealand’s only such service.

Between 2006 and 2009 Tammy and I volunteered 40 hours a week each to provide direct, effective and completely free settlement support services to well over 10,000 families.

Seminars
Gathering huge amounts of information on the causes of migration problems we saw a pattern and in both 2007 and 2008 Tammy and I travelled back to the UK to present a series of Seminars aimed at providing proactive settlement support to help people avoid the problems we encountered every day: giving good information to them before the stepped on a plane.

The Seminars were held in association with the immigration department and were hugely successful with immediate and long term benefits apparent to the migrants we helped.

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Current
Our organisation was all but destroyed in 2009 as a result of an incomprehensible government attack. move2nz.com is still going strong though and will hopefully be voted New Zealand favourite Community website for a third year running.

While I cannot currently offer migrants direct settlement support my newsletters and this blog are intended to help new, settled and prospective migrants build a better understanding of New Zealand immigration in 2010.

– Mike Bell
move2nz architect

Please note: I am not a licensed immigration adviser and none of the entries on this blog should be treated or used as immigration advice.