Stuart's application for EI
First, the really good part (in case I haven't told you): Stuart has been accepted to the Video Game Design Post Graduate Diploma program at Vancouver Film School. This is the best program of its type in the country. They want him badly enough that they have offered him a $7000 bursary towards his tuition (tuition is $27000).
Now, the complicated part. Stuart is eligible for a government program called "Reachback", which can provide up to $25000 for someone who needs retraining to be employable. A month ago when he met with someone about this, she was very negative and suggested that he might want to move to BC first and then apply for the program there (since Reachback is a federal program). She said that since no one here would have heard of Vancouver Film School and there are no video game production companies that are local his chances would be very small that he would get approval. Then she set a followup appointment for the end of August (you can't apply more than 2 months before the start of school, since they are afraid you'll stop doing jobsearch stuff).
I was so discouraged after that appintment that I curled up and cried.
The followup appointment happened on Monday morning. We made sure we had every form filled out in excruciating detail and in addition to that we had pages and pages of supporting documentation. We had articles on how the video game industry in Canada is growing so well and producing so many jobs that provincial governments are subsidizing companies. We had lists of Canadian video game companies that are currently hiring, divided by geographical location. We had email interviews with half a dozen potential employers who all said if Stuart had the training in question they would hire him.
Stuart was gone over an hour (I'm not allowed to go to these meetings ) and came home with a stack of more forms . None of these were forms she had given us before, but were necessary. Thankfully I had already gotten almost all of the information she was requesting on these forms. Her attitude was much more positive and he now had another follow up on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday his meeting lasted two whole hours! (I've learned that long meetings usually mean better results) She wanted to make sure they dotted every "i" and crossed every "t". She said she would be writing a recommendation that he get all of the money he requested and she would have it done that day (she wasn't going to be in on Friday and wanted to make sure it was all submitted before she left that evening).
So - it's looking very positive. The hard part is this - we won't know until the end of September whether he is approved for the money. The school requires his tuition paid in full by September 20th, so if we're turned down it will be too late to look for a lot of other options. Our only other option is to get someone to cosign on a student loan (since we have such poor credit we can't get it on our own), but neither of our parents can do it and none of our friends have that kind of credit (at least none that I can think of). Anyone know a sugar daddy? ;-)
We're going to spend the next month praying frantically that this goes through. And while we wait we do things like house hunting, since we won't have a lot of time before we leave. Orientation is Oct 16th. School starts Oct 20th. We'd like to be out there a week or two early to let us get relatively settled first.
So that's the scoop. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!
Now, the complicated part. Stuart is eligible for a government program called "Reachback", which can provide up to $25000 for someone who needs retraining to be employable. A month ago when he met with someone about this, she was very negative and suggested that he might want to move to BC first and then apply for the program there (since Reachback is a federal program). She said that since no one here would have heard of Vancouver Film School and there are no video game production companies that are local his chances would be very small that he would get approval. Then she set a followup appointment for the end of August (you can't apply more than 2 months before the start of school, since they are afraid you'll stop doing jobsearch stuff).
I was so discouraged after that appintment that I curled up and cried.
The followup appointment happened on Monday morning. We made sure we had every form filled out in excruciating detail and in addition to that we had pages and pages of supporting documentation. We had articles on how the video game industry in Canada is growing so well and producing so many jobs that provincial governments are subsidizing companies. We had lists of Canadian video game companies that are currently hiring, divided by geographical location. We had email interviews with half a dozen potential employers who all said if Stuart had the training in question they would hire him.
Stuart was gone over an hour (I'm not allowed to go to these meetings ) and came home with a stack of more forms . None of these were forms she had given us before, but were necessary. Thankfully I had already gotten almost all of the information she was requesting on these forms. Her attitude was much more positive and he now had another follow up on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday his meeting lasted two whole hours! (I've learned that long meetings usually mean better results) She wanted to make sure they dotted every "i" and crossed every "t". She said she would be writing a recommendation that he get all of the money he requested and she would have it done that day (she wasn't going to be in on Friday and wanted to make sure it was all submitted before she left that evening).
So - it's looking very positive. The hard part is this - we won't know until the end of September whether he is approved for the money. The school requires his tuition paid in full by September 20th, so if we're turned down it will be too late to look for a lot of other options. Our only other option is to get someone to cosign on a student loan (since we have such poor credit we can't get it on our own), but neither of our parents can do it and none of our friends have that kind of credit (at least none that I can think of). Anyone know a sugar daddy? ;-)
We're going to spend the next month praying frantically that this goes through. And while we wait we do things like house hunting, since we won't have a lot of time before we leave. Orientation is Oct 16th. School starts Oct 20th. We'd like to be out there a week or two early to let us get relatively settled first.
So that's the scoop. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers!