Bonjour mon cher blog.
How I miss updating this blog of mine. I just thought I have no more to share since the day we hit one year here in the maple leaf country but I was wrong.
The New Brunswick Provincial Nominee Program Express Entry Labour Market Stream (NBPNP EELMS) just issued golden ITAs (Invitation to Apply) to applicants who attended Information Sessions for the last 2 years and one of them is my sister, teehee. This is the third year that they have been issuing ITAs under the above program and I couldn't be happier to share this on my blog because a member of my family is one of them.
My husband and I, as everyone knows, came here to Canada through the NBPNP EELMS program which started with New Brunswick's first Information Session in July 2015 in my country, the Philippines (Manila/Cebu). We were under the very first batch of immigrants who were lucky to come to Canada under said program. This program opened in connection with the Canada Immigration and Citizenship (CIC)'s pilot Express Entry program which started in January of 2015.
Then with the success of the NBPNP EELMS in 2015, New Brunswick Government conducted another information sessions in 2016 to various countries. Dubai, United Arab Emirates is one of them where my older sister lives and works for almost a decade now.
With God's favour and protection, He allowed me and my husband to become permanent residents (PR) and it is just proper for us to share this blessing to our family. Thus, it is our priority to help my sister to also come to Canada with her children. She is a single mother who has been away with her very young kids (since ages 1 and 3) and work abroad to provide them a better living. I really wanted them to be together too. My nephew and niece were my first babies. I have the chance to experienced being a mother because of them. They're grown ups now and in their teenage years.
To make the story short, I told my sister to get her IELTS and WES done for them to follow us here in Fredericton. I am a graduate of NBPNP and CIC but I have been monitoring their websites because of my sister, especially NBPNP. When they posted schedule of information sessions in Dubai. I automatically relayed this to my sister and so she had the chance to attend the July 20, 2016 information session under the National Occupational Classification (NOC) 2174/Computer Programmers and Interactive Media Developers.
She passed her IELTS with a minimum score of 6 in 1/2 of the 4 modules in IELTS. She only have a 2-year post secondary diploma on her WES. These, however, made her eligibility requirement score so low that she did not even made it to 67/100 (NBPNP EELMS Expression of Interest [EOI] minimum required points) making her ineligible to apply under the NBPNP EELMS. She only scored 61/100 because age is one of the factor too and, during that time, she cannot claim 5 points on adaptability because we just landed in New Brunswick barely 2 or 3 months. So I told her to do a (a) repeat IELTS exam and hit a higher score to which I know it is very difficult to do, and (b) we wait for May 2017, our 1 year, to apply so she can claim 5 points more on her scores.
My sister had her repeat IELTS in February 2017 and is still short of the minimum EOI points (62/100) because she had her birthday in December 2016. Still short even if she was not deducted 1 point of her score because of age. Thus, our last resort is the 5 points adaptability score which will be in effect only by May 2017 (our one year in Canada). Sadly, the NBPNP EELMS temporarily closes in March 2017 to give way to another program, the Atlantic Immigration Pilot Program (AIPP). I will not go through with this because my sister tried to apply with this program but she was not given the chance to be contacted and have an interview with employers of AIPP.
It is really heartbreaking to have our anniversary in May 2017 but my sister cannot apply with the NBPNP EELMS because it was temporarily closed. But this did not stop me in researching for ways on how my sister and her 2 kids come here to Canada.
I found New Brunswick's other Provincial Nominee Program, the Skilled Worker Applicants with Family Support where the requirement for Family Supporter is that she/he has been working in New Brunswick for 12 consecutive months and an interview. We actually started filling up forms on this on my first year anniversary working with UPS in August 2017. I know we can pass the interview since my husband and I are both regular full time Brokerage Rater and is way above minimum salaried per hour employees of UPS Canada so there is nothing to be afraid getting rejected on "Family Supporter" literal meaning. The downfall of this program, however, is that there is too much papers to work on. We need to submit package documents for NBPNP and CIC at the same time and submit these to New Brunswick Government. Once nominated, NB will submit CIC package document directly to them for PR application. I like NBPNP EELMS better because it has step-by-step process and is more faster.
Good thing NBPNP EELMS re-opened last September 7, 2017 so my sister had the chance to apply again. This time with 67/100 EOI points under Priority 1 (Relative) and 2 (July 30, 2016 Information Session). Funny thing is, she got excited when I sent her a message. She emailed NB an old version of her EOI with no amount of POF and Job Seeker Code. So, she had to re-send another EOI by September 8, 2017. And guess what, she received her golden ITA (Invitation to Apply) last Friday the 13th, October 13, 2017. Oh how happy can we be. She was crying with joy over the phone. Who will not be? I cried too when I received ours, LOL. Below is my sister's "very photogenic" golden ITA, wink, wink, wink:
She now also have a timeline, hahaha, I am just so happy and excited but here it is:
EOI: 08/08/2017
ITA: 10/13/2017
Pray, pray and more prayers.
See you next year. :)
See you next year. :)
My sister has her reason why she wanted to immigrate to Canada with her kids. The same way as we had ours. The only thing that matters is making our dreams come through for that "reason/s" why we wanted to come to Canada. We made it here. Others made it here too. Soon, and in God's grace, my sister, nephew and niece will make it here to Canada. We just need to make it happen and we will do our very best to help them because it is still better to be around families. Above all, we need to continuously pray to our Father God for guidance and trust that He will answer our prayer.
