Jan Hugo: Welcome to the Relocated South African, the show for navigating immigration from South Africa for a better future. I’m your host Jan Hugo from Lagos in Portugal. Check out our website www.therelocatedsouthafrican.com. It contains a lot of useful information and details of all episodes to date.
If you want to interact with us or comment on our discussions, or participate in an interview, contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com. So if you like our content, why not subscribe on your favourite platform. Today I welcome all the way from Brisbane in Australia, Marlene Prentice, welcome Marlene.
Marlene Prentice: Thank you, nice to meet you Jan.
Jan Hugo: And you, so Marlene is the owner of Migration Network Australia. But more about that a little later. So by way of introduction, Marlene, please tell us about your journey where you grew up, went to school, university, family, and how did you get to live in Australia?
Marlene Prentice: Fantastic, no problem. I was actually born in South Africa in a very little town called Sterkstroom, somewhere in the Eastern Cape. Then moved to Port Elizabeth, did my primary schooling there, relocated to Johannesburg, did high school and university there. I studied as an accountant and went into that field for a good few years, met my husband, got married, two beautiful children and at the age of about 38 for myself and 39 for my husband, we decided it’s time to immigrate. We set our sights pretty clearly on Australia simply because we felt the language was the same, the seasons are the same. We love rugby and we just enjoyed the culture. So we applied, we were very lucky to qualify and we got in on my qualifications as an accountant. My husband is also an accountant.
We landed on the Gold Coast in 2004. Now the plan was never to actually stay on the Gold Coast. We were supposed to go to Brisbane, but once I landed here, I absolutely fell in love with this place and I decided I’m not moving ever again. This is where I want to stay for the rest of my life. So we settled here on the Gold Coast. Beautiful beaches, beautiful weather, very similar to Durban and the East Coast in South Africa. And from 2004, we started carving our little nest here on the Gold Coast in Australia. Our children finished schooling. They started work and they’re very happy and absolutely love it. My husband and I both got into the accounting field and it was probably about two years in that I decided, look, I’ve gone through this whole big journey of immigrating myself. It was expensive. It was traumatic. It was emotional. It was tough.
In those years there wasn’t as many South Africans in Australia to actually guide us and help us. Facebook forums were non-existing so I decided why not study and qualify myself so that I could actually help my own family to come over to Australia. I set about doing that two years later I was qualified and then I started doing visas for my family. It probably took about a year and all of a sudden I got all these inquiries from other people. My business started growing from a tiny little boutique agency where I only had three or four clients a month maybe, and it just blossomed. I must say the advent of Facebook and the Facebook forums have really exploded and assisted our business in a massive way. So immigration on the Facebook and WhatsApp groups and pages have really assisted my business. But then again, I would say about 80% of my business comes from referrals from other clients or previous clients that I’ve had or that I do have.
The business has grown to a point where I had to stop my own full-time job. I started my little business in the garage to start off with and then a few years later built offices and now we’ve got a lovely little boutique office set up here in Burleigh on the Gold Coast and we’ve got dedicated staff that look after people and we basically deal mainly with people coming from Australia, from South Africa to Australia. But we also deal with anybody else everywhere in the world who would like to come to Australia.
Jan Hugo: So, Marlene, I said you come from Brisbane, but you’re talking about the Gold Coast, maybe for us ignoramuses, you can explain exactly where the Gold Coast is relative to Brisbane.
Marlene Prentice: Absolutely. The Gold Coast is about 100 kilometres south from Brisbane on the coast. Although a lot of people actually think that we refer to a region when we call it the Gold Coast, it actually is a city in its own right. It’s got about 700,000 people living here, and it’s been growing quite steadily over the last 10 years. And I would probably compare it to a city like Umhlanga, but pretty much a lot bigger than Umhlanga. And it’s a thriving little, well, a big town actually, I should say it isn’t little anymore.
But we’ve got a very cosmopolitan sort of mix of people on the Gold Coast. And it’s very much, there’s a lot of fitness freaks here. We’ve got probably the most gyms in the country per capita here on the Gold Coast, because there’s a lot of beautiful people who live here, and they love being on the beach and looking fantastic.
Jan Hugo: Awesome. And I suppose because of the weather and the similarity to KwaZulu-Natal, probably a lot of South Africans.
Marlene Prentice: A lot of South Africans. When I deal with people, I always ask them, where’s your preference to come and relocate? And I would say 10 years ago, it was always Perth. Whereas in the last 10 years, the majority of people want to come to either Brisbane or the Gold Coast.
Jan Hugo: Well, that’s amazing. It’s interesting. My brother’s daughter lives down there and she’s a teacher. They moved in the last two years. And I think most of the teachers at their school are Africans.
Marlene Prentice: We’ve actually got some schools here on the Gold Coast, specifically one or two that I can mention. One is King’s Christian College and the other one’s called Emmanuel College. And I would say 40 to 50% of the teachers are South African.
Jan Hugo: Yeah, no, it’s exactly what they found. They love it there. So it’s awesome. So when you guys moved years ago, 2004, was it tough to move as a family? I think when you’re young, you are probably, it’s easier to adapt to change. But it was difficult because of the kids’ ages. I think for me it was difficult because of the two girls being 14 and 11. I really wish I did it when they were about three, four, five years old. Our oldest daughter was already in her first year of high school and second year, second year of high school. And that was really tough for her. And when she landed here, she basically had to say goodbye to all her friends and everybody and everything that she’s known all her life. The younger one also felt it emotionally but I think she didn’t always show it as much and she really integrated quite quickly.
Marlene Prentice: The children find it very tough and I do believe that those years and possibly now even I don’t even know. I don’t know if there’s enough emotional support from an external point of view for children who actually immigrate at that sort of age group. I think we just think, oh, they’re young, they’ll get over it, they’ll integrate, they’ll make friends. But more often than not now, a lot of youngsters, teenagers, have really struggled through those first few years. They do settle down, and as they grow older, obviously, they settle into their occupations and they make friends. But it is really tough on them. And I think they try to put up a brave face because us as parents, we will always say, we’re doing it for your benefit. We’re doing it so you can have a future. So they feel guilty if they feel that they don’t want to complain about anything. But I think deep down they really struggle as much as what we probably are as well.
From a work point of view, I found myself and my husband got jobs really easily and walked into it because of the type of work that we’ve done. Although I didn’t personally get any racism or negativeness directed to me on a regular basis, I did get the odd one or two people who would say to me, you know, our country is full, we don’t need you. So, but those ones, you just laugh it off because those are the ignorant ones who don’t realise that the country needs skills, et cetera. And that there’s benefits to immigrants. But overall, I can honestly say that we integrated pretty quickly. And our mindset was to just take it as a learning experience, just absolutely embrace everything that’s new, everything that’s different and just laugh at yourself when you make a mistake or you do a silly thing. Because if you don’t have that positive attitude, I mean, there were times when you cry as well. But you have to overall have that positive attitude to just get you through those first two years. Because I think the first two years are actually the ones that are the toughest.
Jan Hugo: I think that’s very true. And, you know, in a lot of conversations, it’s very important to be on the same page, I think, as a family, because you only have each other to support. And it’s hard in those times. And sometimes one is up and one is down. So you’ve got to have that support. And also, one of the thoughts that’s relevant this week about the psychology part of it is don’t think that immigration will fix a broken relationship. That’s not going to work. You’ve got to be on the same page and agree. And did you guys leave a lot of family behind in SA?
Marlene Prentice: Yes, we left all our family behind. The only family, my husband had a brother that was already in Brisbane, but we haven’t seen them for 20 years because they immigrated to the US 20 years earlier. So for us, it was really just coming here and not knowing anybody or anything.
Jan Hugo: And have you been back to South Africa?
Marlene Prentice: Oh, yeah. From about 2006 up and back about twice a year and I literally came back from South Africa a week ago. I was very lucky to be able to attend one of my cousin’s milestone birthdays there and it was absolutely amazing because that was actually the first time since I was 14 years old that I went back to Port Elizabeth and it was just wonderful to catch up with family again. Family is so important. And I think we forget about how important it is to have those cousins and uncles and aunts all around us. Because once you’re away from it, you don’t actually know what you miss, but you miss it once you go back.
Jan Hugo: And your impression of PE?
Marlene Prentice: The streets were dirty. But there were some efforts of cleaning it up, which I thought was good. But what worried me, and I’m sure everybody in Port Elizabeth is concerned or even more concerned than what I am, is that the big industries that have closed down and the unemployment that it’s created, I do believe that the Eastern Cape was a bit of a stepchild sort of thing. And I don’t know enough about the politics to know why and what’s going on there, or if they’ve got funding or that. But I got the feeling that people were struggling.
There were a lot of people eating out. There were a lot of people doing social things. But me going back after, I mean, 50 years, so that’s huge. So I remember the Port Elizabeth from years and years ago. I went to the aquarium and when I was there last, there were dolphins and seals and dolphins and all sorts of things. I believe that they’ve stopped the funding for that. Or maybe the support is not there for it. There’s nothing there. The whole aquarium, there’s not even a drop of water in those big swimming pools. That to me was sad, and I also was very sad to see the main street. The main street has become, it’s a selling place for Chinese goods. That’s the impression I got about the main street. The beautiful old library and the buildings are as beautiful as what they ever were, but the library has been locked up. It hasn’t been used for years. So that to me is sad.
Jan Hugo: That’s unfortunate, but it’s just interesting when people go back. We haven’t been back in five years and I’m sure it’s already changed a lot, you know. And we lived in Stellenbosch but I think that’s unfortunately part of the reason why people want to emigrate because that’s, I mean, that’s the other question is with your clients and so on, what is the biggest reason that you find why people want to leave South Africa?
Marlene Prentice: At the moment the biggest reason that’s being cited is for safety and security and education for their children and I find more and more the male component, the husbands or fathers are saying that they cannot find jobs in South Africa. If they don’t have their own businesses they struggle to find something worthwhile and to earn a reasonable amount of money to sustain their family and that has been cited as the most, the three biggest reasons I would say for people now immigrating. Ten odd years ago my clientele was between 38 and 45. At the moment it’s between 25 and 35. So the younger group of South Africans straight out of university maybe or having just finished a trade and having done two, three, four years of work experience, they are now the majority of my clients.
Jan Hugo: Wow, that’s really interesting. And in terms of your business of helping people with the process, do you also assist them with finding employment in Australia?
Marlene Prentice: I actually don’t, but I have a joint venture with a company called Anzuk and they specialise in finding employment for all my teachers. They are absolutely fantastic and everybody that I refer to them, they will find them employment because we have got a massive shortage of teachers in the country.
Jan Hugo: Okay, so that’s a big one. But people like accountants and engineers and so on, are there still work opportunities in Australia?
Marlene Prentice: There’s so much work here. If you want to work, you’re going to find a job here. You’re not going to struggle. And what I find a lot of people do, they come over on one skill. And then all of a sudden they realise there’s so many other occupations available in this country that aren’t available in South Africa. And they go into those different lines of occupations. And the one thing that will always fascinate me about Australia, which I absolutely love, there’s no typical class difference between what kind of job you do. You can be picking up the garbage and you can be living next to the doctor. You’ve got a house, he’s got a house, you’ve got a car, he’s got a car, he’s got a job, he’s looking after his family and so are you. So everybody is on the same footing as long as they just behave themselves and be decent people.
Jan Hugo: That’s awesome. And I guess two questions with your clients coming in. What do they find the most difficult thing to cope with initially?
Marlene Prentice: I think initially people talk about not being able to quite get a foot in the door with a typical Australian and that to me is probably the way I’ve looked at it is like what we call an Aussie. An Aussie will not easily invite you to his or her house. They would rather say let’s go to a restaurant or let’s go to the park and have a picnic or let’s go to the beach, things like that. There’s a lot of reasons for that because they don’t have housekeepers. Their houses are probably not as tidy as what we were used to when we do have a housekeeper. They’ve got kids and they’ve got busy lives and it’s very, very busy when you’ve got kids and you don’t have anybody to help you in the house. So they would rather be outside of the house and enjoy themselves because all the parks and all the things are free, it’s safe, and there’s so much to do. So it’s very, very seldom that an Aussie will invite you to their house. And also as well, if they invite you to their house, the wife has to cook. She wants the day off, so she’d rather go to the park or they’d go to the restaurant. That is something I’ve found which is very different socially compared to South Africa. In South Africa we go to people’s houses all the time and it is reciprocal and you visit and you’re knocking on the door and going inside for a coffee doesn’t often happen here. That’s interesting.
Jan Hugo: And I guess the, you know, the other side is what do they find most appealing? I would say talking from personal experience, one thing that we initially, I mean it was so nice to have to cope with, is the safety aspect of seeing, you know, we’re cyclists, we see women riding on their own, you see women running on their own just with no fear. And I guess that’s also a big thing in Australia that people, they just think it’s amazing.
Marlene Prentice: Yeah. The safety aspect is just absolutely amazing. I’m a keen runner and the number of times that I would go out at 9 or 10 o’clock at night and go for my run on my own just with a headlight on so I don’t trip, it’s numerous. And it’s just such a great feeling of freedom of not having to look over your shoulder or worrying about anything. There is crime, yeah, please don’t get me wrong. There’s crime everywhere in the world. But it’s not that violent crime and it’s mostly petty crime. And yes, there are drugs here. But honestly, if you keep away from it, they’ll keep away from you. The freedom, the beaches, the parks, the public facilities. You can go into a park and push a button and gas and water comes out of this beautiful stainless steel barbecue or barbie as they call it. It’s for free. It’s there for everybody to enjoy and it’s clean. It’s beautiful.
Jan Hugo: No, I guess that’s a big thing. A lot of people that I speak to in Australia on the podcast talk about the freedom of having kids play in the front garden with no fences and riding their bikes to school. So that is something which shows how bad the security issue is in the back of the minds of South Africans. So yeah, fully understand. Let’s just talk a little bit about, you talked about South African groups and so on, the Facebook groups. Obviously a lot of people gravitate towards those groups in order to feel welcome and so on. But one thing that I’ve also found and I’ve always said that when you immigrate you can’t look over your shoulder and say, well, if it doesn’t work I’m going back. I don’t know what you find with your clients because for me that is such a critical thing because it puts you back a long time if you head back because people cash in their pensions, they spend the money to go abroad and they start fresh and now they go back to South Africa and it’s a nightmare. So is that something you come across when you talk to people?
Marlene Prentice: When people are right at the initial stages I do these Zoom meetings with all my clients and every now and again, the question comes up about should we leave property or our pensions or whatever or a little bit of an estate in South Africa. And my opinion is, I always leave my personal opinion because I can’t give them financial advice. But in my personal opinion is close the door. Make sure you don’t have the back door open because then the smallest little thing that goes wrong in the new country, you’re going to say, oh, I can go back. And then your mind is divided. Your heart is not in it. You need to know this: I’m going to make this work. Come hell or high water.
Jan Hugo: That’s very good advice. I think that’s awesome. So we talked, when you talk about the business you say you pride yourself on ethical, unambiguous advice. Does that imply there’s people that don’t give that in Australia?
Marlene Prentice: Yes and no. Not necessarily always in Australia. There’s a lot of immigration agents out there. And that’s both in South Africa and Australia. And unfortunately, something that I have come across lately is that there are agents who will take on clients who by law, yes, you tick all the boxes, you meet the requirements to get a visa, but the chances of you getting an invitation to get a visa is probably one or 2% or under 10%. They won’t tell the client that. They will rather say to the client, I’m going to take your money. I’m going to do everything that we need to do. And then you’re going to be sitting in the EOI system for two years. And after two years, I’m going to say to you, that’s sad. Sorry, I couldn’t get your visa.
I’m not that type of person. I have quite a few people in specific occupations that have come to me and say, but it’s on the list. Surely you can do my visa for me. I could probably, but you’re not going to get an invitation. Your chances are better to come to an employer, try and get a temporary work visa and take that pathway. And I will give them that option and that pathway. I don’t like taking people’s money, knowing that they’re probably not going to get a visa or an invitation, even if they meet the criteria. I like to be honest, I’d rather walk away from that business than to actually give them false hope. It’s not fair to give someone false hope when they are making this massive decision to uproot their whole family. And then for the next two, three years, they’re just living in limbo.
Jan Hugo: Now that’s very interesting because in Portugal, there’s a massive group here of South Africans helping South Africans in Portugal. And the guy who runs it, he’s quite a difficult dude, but he’s dead against agencies. So he’s got a group, oh my word, with files on everything. He says, no, you can do it yourself. You don’t need an agent. And I think that’s wrong advice, but obviously that’s his preference. And the question is, if somebody says, okay, well, Steve said, don’t use an agent, what would the opposite be? Why should you use an agent?
Marlene Prentice: I pick up quite a few jobs where people have done self-managed visa applications. They’ve paid their AU$10,000 visa fees to actually get the visa. Only to be told they’ve overclaimed points here or they’ve overclaimed points there or these documents are not correct. This is going to go back. Now they either face delays in getting their visa or they could get a total refusal and lose AU$10,000. That’s on average what it will cost a family of four to immigrate to Australia. Now, if you can afford AU$10,000 instead of just paying an immigration fee and not having to worry about that risk, that is a personal choice. And I’m going to be honest with you, there are probably some occupations and some people who have done one degree, I’ve only worked in one job for 10 years, I’ve got no children, I’ve got no husband, no wife, and I’m healthy and I’ve got no character issues. They could probably do it themselves, but there’s always that risk that they could tick the wrong box or add the wrong document and then they get a refusal. It is a personal risk.
If someone said to me, you can buy your own house, why would you go through an agent? Yeah, I think everybody can buy their own house. It’s not that difficult to get the papers off the internet and you fill everything in and you give it to the seller and off you go. But no, it’s too big a risk and too big an investment for me to want to go and do that myself.
Jan Hugo: Very good advice. And at what point, if people are thinking of, you know, interestingly, a large part of our listeners are still in South Africa, when should you start talking to an agency?
Marlene Prentice: At the decision-making stage, when you’ve got that decision in your mind. We do free assessments. If you’re not certain about things, if you’re not sure about costs, speak to an agent. Speak to an agent who can give you a free assessment. Don’t go and pay for that advice because you may not qualify and then at least you know the facts. So speak to an agent at that point of view, get a free assessment and then make the decisions going forward from there because that assessment will give you your options and it will give you the total, it should give you the total cost of the whole process. There shouldn’t be any hidden fees. And at least then you can make a calculated decision. You can sit down with your family. You can speak to the family that will be left behind, and you can also make that decision together.
Jan Hugo: Okay. And I have to ask, as an accountant, is your fee a success-based fee, or is there a work fee with a success-based fee at the end? How does it work typically?
Marlene Prentice: I’m probably the only agent I’m aware of right now who gives 50% guarantee back if I can’t get you a visa.
Jan Hugo: Oh, wow. That is amazing. I mean, that is putting your money where your mouth is. I think that’s awesome. So if people have paid and they don’t get a visa, you give them 50% back.
Marlene Prentice: 50% of my fee that they paid me, I’ll give it back because I don’t want them not to get a visa. I want them to get a visa.
Jan Hugo: That is absolutely amazing. In your business, there must be some feel-good stories. Have you got any anecdotal stories that you can tell?
Marlene Prentice: Oh, there’s many stories in this business. I’ve got some interesting ones. I had a family this week on Monday. They are settled in Perth, WA. And this lady is relatively young, 35, 36, husband, pretty much the same age, and they’ve got three teenage children, sort of around about 10 years old, 12 years old. There was absolutely no chance for her of coming to Australia straightforward. She didn’t have the qualification. She didn’t have the work experience, nothing, but she was determined to come over and make a success here and bring her family over. So about seven years ago, she contacted me for the first time and we started with a student visa for her. She brought herself, her husband and the three kids over. They could only work 20 hours a week because she was actively studying.
For three years, she did all her studies. After that, we did an expression of interest for her. She did the year’s work and we did an expression of interest for her. She got a visa invitation from WA. We lodged the visa and on Monday it got approved. A seven-year journey of never giving up.
Jan Hugo: Wow. That is amazing. No, that is absolutely amazing. I take my hat off to people like that. Honestly, I love working with people who will say, okay, I can’t do it, but I’m going to make it happen. Yeah.
Marlene Prentice: Oh, well, that’s fantastic. That’s great to hear.
Jan Hugo: And in terms of immigration worldwide and more specifically illegal immigration is a big topic right now. How do you see immigration in Australia changing in the future?
Marlene Prentice: There’s definitely political sort of clouds hanging over it at the moment. I do believe that a lot has to do with the illegal immigrants in the rest of the world. And it is affecting our immigration numbers because although our numbers and quotas are exactly the same as last year, we have not seen as many visa grants or visa invitations in this first few months of the year. However, we have now seen since about a week ago, they’ve started opening up.
So I do believe that the government has to appease the two parties. The one party that’s in control has to show the other party that they are watching the numbers and they’re not bringing or condoning illegal immigration. And they are also making sure that certain countries are not overpopulated here or overrepresented. And I think by doing that, they are actually going to come off quite lightly with this big backlash of immigration worldwide. The Australian government is pretty aware of what’s going on all over the world and I don’t think they want the same situation to happen here. There has been some demonstrations but those were mainly demonstrations against any cultural group that will not integrate and does burn our flag. We’re very proud of the Australian flag and we don’t tolerate it if someone comes in here and burns our flag and shows disrespect. So there has been some demonstrations and furore about that. And I think that’s been handled because I believe that those people need to understand you come to a country to integrate. You don’t come here to abuse the system. And that is a message to anybody and everybody. You are here initially as a guest in this country, and you need to comply with the rules and you need to follow the law.
Jan Hugo: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thinking back to your own journey in 2004, you said you would have probably come earlier with your kids. Is there anything else that you know now that you wish you knew then?
Marlene Prentice: Definitely would have come earlier. I think I was so ignorant when I was in South Africa and I really didn’t know anything about Australia. Before I came here, I thought Tasmania was a different country. I didn’t realise it was a state. So when I landed here and someone said they came from Tasmania, I thought, that’s a bit weird. What are you doing here? So ignorance was bliss, but I probably should have done a bit more homework, but I feel I had luck on my side. So I landed exactly where I wanted to be and where I’m happy. But research, research is very important. Do your research. Because the one thing that probably most people don’t realise is this country is very big and you could feel like you’re living in five different countries by just moving around from state to state. It’s very, very different in their laws. Every state has got their own laws with regards to education, policing, and health and all these things. So that’s different to South Africa. We’re not used to that. We think there’s one rule for the whole country. It isn’t. So make yourself aware of those.
Something that I find very interesting at the surprise that we have with South Africans, so many of the South Africans lose their licence in the first few months because we don’t think it’s that important to stop at stop streets or to abide by the rules and to keep to the speed limit. So that does happen. Make sure you don’t lose your licence in the first six months.
Jan Hugo: Good. And I mean, the one thing that comes up in a lot of discussions and I am also a victim is shipping furniture, my word.
Marlene Prentice: Yes, very good point.
Jan Hugo: We came out with two 20-foot containers. We should have come out with five suitcases.
Marlene Prentice: Absolutely. We donated the contents of a 40-foot container in France. Same thing, because the furniture doesn’t fit. And you think, it’s just a big problem. But that’s one piece of advice that I would say to people. Think very carefully. Bring stuff that it’s really dear to you and you don’t want to be without but don’t bring those big couches and things because they absolutely, I agree with you. I cannot agree more because there’s no market for secondhand furniture. That’s what we found.
Jan Hugo: No, you literally go and dump brand new stuff.
Marlene Prentice: Yeah, we have a lot of charity shops. So we take stuff there because at least they do something with it. And it’s for a good purpose. But, you know, and in Portugal, the other thing is you buy a house with furniture. So you very seldom see a house being sold empty. Only new houses, you know, from a developer. But even then, they will put furniture in for you. So it’s interesting.
Jan Hugo: Yeah. And I mean, we’re kind of getting to the end of the interview. What advice would you give to anyone now in South Africa thinking about moving to Australia?
Marlene Prentice: Get an assessment, because thinking about it and not knowing whether you meet the requirements, you know, you could be thinking about it and then you’re stuck. Get an assessment, discuss it with your family, do your research, make sure your heart is in the right place, your mind is in the right place, and everybody’s on the same page. There’s opportunities for all the family members. Once a year you can bring your parents over. Yes, it’s expensive, yes, it’s going to take a bit longer, but there are options for them further down the line to bring Ouma and Oupa over because that’s hard to bring your children, young children over and leaving the grandparents there is really, really tough. But do consider and ask upfront, what are the options for my parents once I’m there? Because that is something that you can then discuss with your parents so that they can know, yes, in the future, there is possibility for me to go over. But do research, get an honest quote, and make sure you’re all on the same page with your heart and your mind in it.
Jan Hugo: Excellent. And I guess patience. You have to have a bit of patience because it’s taking a bit longer than usual.
Marlene Prentice: Yeah. I guess everywhere in the world we deal with red tape and sometimes you just have to be patient.
Jan Hugo: No, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much. I think you have a fantastic story and a great business. If people want to contact you, what’s the best way to contact you?
Marlene Prentice: The easiest is to email me marlene@mignetau.com. They can also go on my website, it’s one word, migrationnetworkaustralia.com and the email address is also there and they can go on the social forums. If they are on South Africans migrating to Australia or Hopping Down Under, I have a very active presence on those two forums.
Jan Hugo: Excellent. We’ll put it on the show notes as well. So if you want to contact Marlene, thank you so much for joining us, Marlene. I really appreciate it. It’s lovely to talk to you.
Marlene Prentice: It was a lovely pleasure. Thank you, Jan. Thank you.
Jan Hugo: If you enjoyed my discussion with Marlene and would like to hear more about experiences of South Africans who have left South Africa, why not subscribe on your favourite platform? If you would like to share your own story, contact me on jan@therelocatedsouthafrican.com. Until next time.
