We'd like to congratulate this semester's graduates of Victoria University's Workplace Communications for Skilled Migrants, and everyone involved with the course's success!

Frank Liu on graduation day.

This year's graduation speech was made by Fidela A. Ladores. She was kind enough to let us reproduce it on our blog.

Graduation Speech

Good evening everyone. I am very pleased to deliver a speech on behalf of my classmates to reflect on the skills and experiences that we have gained on our course on Workplace Communication for Skilled Migrants.

Life is a journey and as we meet people, there is always a time to part ways such as this one when our course has finally come to an end. Just when we are about to be at ease with each other in the class, we will go our separate ways, starting tonight. We shape our own destiny; we paddle our own canoe (or waka now that I am in NZ). We really sought to establish a new way of life here in New Zealand for various reasons - clean environment, balanced-family life, big land space and decent people who value cultural diversity. But apart from the many advantages come the disadvantages as well – that of having to struggle in getting employed which to me is one thing that I desire the most.

I was a working university student and supported myself throughout my studies in the Philippines. I had a financially rewarding full-time career in my previous employment which gave me financial independence and self-esteem. These are the reasons why finding employment here in New Zealand became a challenge for me. I have been actively seeking for paid employment since the day I set foot here in the country nine months ago. Unfortunately, I have been unsuccessful for various reasons: that I have no local experience, I have no legal right to apply, and the biggest thing is that New Zealand is in a recession and that the job market is practically dead. Only at that time that it occurred to me I have missed the most important 3 letter Ps that come with moving to another country, i.e.: Planning, Preparing and Persevering.

For more than five years this course has become instrumental to the success stories of skilled migrants. It has made a significant contribution to our lives. Through a friend, I learned of this course which is how I started this 3 month journey along with my classmates.. Our class comes from diverse backgrounds: China, South Africa, Cambodia and the Philippines. We have also varied professional backgrounds in I.T., Project Management, Marketing, Finance, Accounting, Bio-medical Research, HR, Law and International Trade.

Our class routines were comprehensive. We did role-playing, interview skills practice, vocabulary and idiomatic expressions practice, reflective journals, observations of workplace interactions, small talk practice, oral presentations, workplace internships and reports about our placements. All these contributed in the improvement of how we now communicate. We also learnt to improve our style of writing and speaking and to communicate in a polite and pleasant manner. The course is beneficial in creating awareness to migrants who cling to preconceived ideas that all of us can make it here in New Zealand without the support and help from others. For example, I recall that when I send reply emails to Nicky I usually look at my notes to find which ones will be appropriate and after a while as you practise you will notice that it already gets into your system.

On behalf of the class we are very grateful to all the volunteer tutors, guest speakers and job mentors from the Rotary Club of Wellington for their unrelenting support and interest in keeping this course continuing over the years; our workplace consultants, our internship mentors and managers, The Johnson Group, the career advisors from Victoria, our teachers Nicky and Angela, and everyone who put in their efforts to come up with such a meaningful programme for skilled migrants. We are also thankful to our families who supported us during our class days and internship.

Through this programme, we built networks, made friendships and realised our strengths and weaknesses and tried to improve on them. No one knows what lies ahead of us but this course has opened doors particularly for my classmates who received job offers out of their placement. The outcome for the rest of the class may look uncertain but who knows - as Oprah Winfrey puts it: “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.”

Thank you and best wishes to all my classmates!