Home-A College of many cultures
- Our team
- From an orchard and vineyard to a school
- Our school culture
- Our school song and haka
- Languages in our school
- Cultural fusion
- Taste sensations from Samoa and the Phillipines
- Arts and Culture Week
- National Independence of Samoa Day
- Discovering different types of cultural dances in Waitakere College
- Waitakere College Arts and Cultural Awards
- Our long-awaited school Marae
- 12,000 miles to New Zealand citizenship
- Europe to Australia to a life in the circus
- Massive state to tiny island to green New Zealand
- Afghanistan to New Zealand
- India to New Zealand
- Around the world
- Research process
- Learning outcomes
- References and acknowledgements
India to New Zealand
Hi, my name is Rudri, I live in New Zealand but I moved here from India, I interviewed my parents asking them questions about our migration and how it has affected their lives. We have been living in New Zealand for about 12 years now and don’t regret moving from India to New Zealand one bit.
The majority of my family lives in different parts of India, but some live in the UK, America, Australia and Europe. My dad decided to migrate here and my mum agreed with that idea. My grandparents weren’t entirely sure if they were okay with their children and grandchildren moving miles and miles away from them, but eventually my dad convinced them and our entire family. I was only 2 years old, my brother was 4, my mum was 32 and my dad was 34 when they took this step of migrating from India. They didn’t have any trouble with the passports or visa but the main problem was to keep me from crying all day!
My dad moved to New Zealand one month before us so that he could get a job and find a house to live in and once he did he called us over and we rented a house. After all of us were settled my mum began looking for a job. The second aim for them was to get a car so we can travel instead of walk or taxi to our destination. After a couple of months everything was done, we had a car, furniture for the house and my brother had kindergarten to look forward to every day. About a year later it was my turn to get enrolled in kindergarten and my parents decided to put me in the same one as my brother. Years went by, me and brother were in the same primary school, Tirimoana. Then came intermediate and after two years of that came High school.
This decision of migrating from India to New Zealand has affected my parents in both positive and negative ways. They understand things through the perspective of people who have lived here for their entire life, but the airline prices are too high to visit our family in India often so we go to visit them every 3-4 years. This big step has also affected us. We have a new learning environment and realise that the way kids gets taught in India and the way they get taught here has a huge difference.
Being in a new country for practically all my life has really made a difference to who I am. I consider myself more Kiwi than Indian because I was only born in India but I learned how to communicate properly here and I am a permanent residence to New Zealand. Even though I have spent most of my life in this beautiful, green country known as New Zealand I’d be happy to visit India any day.
Rudri