A year ago, a Serbian couple who emigrated to Canada for the sake of their children found themselves with no choice but to leave one of their two sons behind. Now they are appealing to the public for a sponsor to help them reunite.
Bozana Kovac says the application process to come to Canada was made on behalf of their family of four. They were nominated Aug. 30, 2011.
When they applied, their oldest son was younger than the maximum age of 21 to be considered part of the family. By the time the extensive paperwork went through, however, and after the fees of 500 euros for each of the four applicants had been paid, they received word that Adrian, then 22, could no longer be included. He was too old.
They've contacted immigration officials to receive no hope in a change to that decision, and under the family reunification guidelines, Adrian is older than the maximum age for dependent children, which is 19.
The family feels their only recourse now is to find a sponsor for Adrian here where they live and that means finding someone who will agree to provide a job. They have been trying to do just that for the last 10 months, but the amount of paperwork involved and the length of the process has put potential employers off, say Bozana and her husband Ferenc.
Bozana says Adrian is living alone in Serbia, with no family in the country, and is working at maintenance of machines and vehicles. He has had four years of training as an electrician, having chosen to attend a professional high school that offered that trade. (High schools in Serbia often offer training in a particular trade.).
Ferenc, Bozana and their younger son are all working full time in the Battlefords. They send money back to Serbia for Adrian. Without their support, they say, he would not be able to lead a normal life as he waits in hope for a way to rejoin his family.
"Imagine that you are alone on one continent and that your whole family is on another," they wrote in a letter to an immigration official. "We are his whole family and he is ours, too."
The family came to Canada to improve the lives of their children. Their younger son is doing well, so they don't want to have to move back to Serbia. Life is very different there, with no real protection for workers, not even a guarantee that one will be paid regularly, if at all, for the work they do. Workers can go months without getting paid, says Bozana.
They want more than that for their sons.
"They're good boys," she says with emotion.
You can't come to Canada without criminal records being checked, she points out, and they have never been in any trouble.
Adrian just wants to work, she says.
