Diego & Gisele Abrianos

Diego + Gisele Abrianos

Diego - Hi my name is Diego. We came here from Brazil to live in Auckland.

Gisele - Hello, my name is Gisele, we are living here in Auckland for a year now.

Diego – Takapuna is now our home. About two years ago I was with my life, very busy life in Brazil and . .ah . myself and my family were looking for a more relaxed way of living. We started our visa process and it took about seven or eight months . . ah. . to be completed. And then as soon as we got our residence visa, we decided to leave our jobs in Brazil and to move to New Zealand and the first thing that we struggled a lot with was to find a job. I tried for maybe six or seven weeks to find a job with no success. And by no success I mean people were not returning to my calls, people were not responding to my CV applications, and then I realized I could have help from local organisations. And then I look at ARMS (Auckland Regional Migrant Services) and the attending the workshops provided by ARMS just kind of opened doors for me. Ah. . I was able to find another organization that was called Omega and another called Chamber of Commerce. And combining the help I received from those three major organisations I was able to review my CV and improve my CV to the local standard and then after more six weeks I guess, I was able to get a job or to get a proposal to sign to get the job.

Gisele – For me find a job here in NZ was not so hard because I start to look for job when I was in Brazil. So first I started to check if the same position that I had in Brazil I could have here. So I already had some idea which companies I could work. So the company I am working now it was one company that I discovered when I was there.

Diego – Auckland . . ah . is close to the same latitude than my city in Brazil and the weather is pretty similar and that was a good point for us because we don’t like too hot places. So Auckland we were used to that. Before when we were in Brazil we were used to go to our family’s house and to meet with them and to have lunch with them. Here we cannot, we don’t have this opportunity anymore. However with the skype we really feel close to them.

Gisele – For me, I talk with my family more now than I talk before.  Because I was born in a city in Brazil and I was living in another city. So for me it’s better now (laughs).

Diego – And now we live in this apartment. We have a nice view from [sic] the sea. We live from , five block from the beach and. . ah . ., whenever we have a little bit of time and it’s still sunshine outside, after work, we just go for a walk on the beach, or we can go also to Lake Pupuke, that’s two blocks from our apartment. Ah. . we can have our skis and go to the mountain, five hours from our home and we can get our bikesdown there on the biking lot and go to a ride on the beach. We can play soccer, we can play rugby. . .

Gisele – And it’s really safe as well, that’s one thing that’s very important. You can cycle at night, we can cycle. . ah . . we don’t need to worry if somebody is going to rob us. And Kiwis are so friendly as well. . ah . .so we thinking about growing our family here.

Diego – The health system for kids is free up to a certain age. That makes life much easier as well. Yeah. . we can definitely have a good work/life balance.

Gisele – exactly.

Diego – And then you have the time to work and to do your job to make your money and to also enjoy your life.  You don’t need to choose between having your personal life and doing well in your profession.

I’m saying to myself ‘Man what a good choice you have made for life, what a good choice!’

Gisele – exactly.

End