08 Sep 2005

BAHRAIN residents contemplating a move to Canada now have access to a wealth of relevant information, thanks to the efforts of former GDN journalist Archie D'Cruz. Mr D'Cruz, who immigrated to Canada in 1998, has launched a new website to assist both would-be immigrants and those who have just moved to the country.

Canada welcomes more than 200,000 immigrants each year, including several hundred people living and working in Bahrain.

The website, which can be viewed as www.immigrationguides.com, was launched just over a month ago.

It is packed with articles, tips, frequently asked questions and links that anyone planning to move to Canada will find useful. The site answers virtually every question would-be immigrants might have, including how to decide on whether Canada is right for you, whether you need to use the services of expensive immigration lawyers (you don't), how to survive the selection interview, what to take with you when you are moving and where to settle. The extensive information available on the site has made it an almost instant success, says Mr D'Cruz.

Part of the reason could be that unlike government websites or those operated by lawyers, this is the first major site to provide unbiased information on immigrating to Canada, he said.

"The site was launched only late in July, yet in August, the first full month since its launch, we've already had more than 70,000 hits," he revealed. Mr D'Cruz said that while the website was new, the information it contains has been accumulated over several years.

"My initial plan was to write a book," said Mr D'Cruz, whose Canadian design firm A Type Of Magic co-publishes the best-selling Visitor's Complete Guide to Bahrain (he is also the editor).

"However, while I kept writing through the years, other projects kept pushing the immigration guidebook onto the back burner," he revealed.

"There was also the issue of managing the distribution of the book, which wouldn't be easy considering the global audience I was catering to."

Finally this year, he decided to simply make all the information freely accessible through his website.

It took him two months to put the site together before he launched it late in July. "While the site is not the revenue-earning project I'd planned several years ago, it's nice to receive e-mails from complete strangers telling you how useful the information has proved for them."

(Source : www.gulf-daily-news.com)

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