Photo:
Photo of Auckland City.

Adjusting to a new town, let alone a new country can often be a stressful experience for the casual traveller.

But migrants coming to New Zealand face the added stress of having to settle in quickly and re-start their life in a new land. This can be a confusing and long drawn out 10 euro bonus, often taking as many as two to three years.

Not having a familiar road map of where everything is, the newcomer can find accessing housing, employment, banking, schools, hospitals, shopping and even leisure activities a complicated process.

Over the last nine years, in Auckland and other major cities in New Zealand, a dedicated team of migrants has been helping newcomers make this transition a little less painful.

Organised by migrants for migrants, the Migrant Expo is a unique free event in New Zealand not replicated on this scale anywhere else in the world.

It is held annually in Auckland and Hamilton and once every two years in Wellington, Dunedin and Christchurch.

This year the Auckland Migrant Expo - New2-Auckland - was held at the ASB Showgrounds on Saturday, 9th July, from 10am-4pm.

Its key aim is to help migrants get information and assistance to integrate into Auckland and into employment more quickly, with less frustration and fewer false starts.

"It was really a great show and a help to all of us new immigrants," says Dr Chitra Sood, a visitor to a previous show. "We felt more informed and educated on almost every aspect."

This year's Migrant Expo was organised with the help of the Auckland Regional Migrant Services (ARMS), which has been a major Expo exhibitor from its beginning.

The Expo has also been renamed 'New2Auckland' and brings services together under one roof, a centralized "One Stop Shop" to meet the needs of all types of migrants, refugees, international students and those moving into Auckland from elsewhere in New Zealand.

In his Expo message, Auckland Mayor, Len Brown said: "I am heartened to see that this year the Migrant Expo is recognizing the challenging issues facing people relocating from Christchurch. We cannot imagine what the people of Christchurch have been through, but we are all in this together and we can offer a warm welcome to our place."

Executive Director of ARMS, Mary Dawson, is a strong supporter of the Migrant Expo. "The Expo is a great opportunity for services to showcase what they can offer in the way of practical support and information for new migrants, established migrants, those thinking of settling here, and international students."