The Emigration Art Of Digging Up Documents - Part 2

From Part 1 - continuation of looking for required documentation:

*University transcripts* - A quick phone call to my alma mater, UNISA (University of South Africa), was all it took. I was told to email my request. So I did. I was a little skeptical at first if the original transcript would ever see the light of day. But I was proved wrong, the letter arrived 2 weeks later, in a university-sealed envelope.

*Police clearances* - Hubby and I made an appointment to pass by the local South African Police Station to apply to get police clearances. We had to supply a certified copy of our identity documents and fingerprints (which were done at the station). The application was sent off to Pretoria and would take 6-8 weeks to come back. We opted to collect it from Pretoria. For the complete procedure of applying for South African police clearance certificates, check this page on the Department of Foreign Affair's website. The only downside to the certificates was that they were only valid for 6 months. So after the 6 months was up, hubby and I had to re-apply for new ones.

*Proof of settlement funds* - There were minimum funds required to make it in Canada. At the time, according to the CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) website, we needed CA$20,654 to support a family of four. That worked out roughly to about R176,000. No small change in there. As I had a mortgaged home, I sent in a copy of my title deed. Plus I added in 3 month's worth of bank statements from both hubby and my cheque accounts. I don't know if it was enough but I think we just made the limit.

And that was the "easy" part done.