Hi, my name is Eve Casagranda, I am the founder of On Arrival!

I was born in Germany and moved with my family to Canada when I was 4 years old. I still have memories of how I missed my friends and extended family, of trying to settle into school, learn a new language, and adapt to a totally different way of life. Calgary was my home until 1986 when my husband accepted a job in Wellington and we moved with our two young daughters to New Zealand. What a shock, going through the trauma of finding a home to rent, the right school for our daughters, discovering where to shop, what to buy to tide us over until our container arrived, and then learning to drive on the other side of the road. Most of all it was trying to find a friend, as my husband went to work on the second day after we arrived, our daughters started school 3 weeks later, and now I was totally “On my Own” wondering why we had moved here. We have been here for almost 36 years now, Wellington is our home, we love it here and all the wonderful things it has to offer. However, I have never forgotten what it was like when we arrived, and when we started On Arrival my passion was to ensure that any families coming here would not go through the same “Stress” that we encountered, and that their resettlement experience would be positive. Having first-hand experience of what it’s like to move to a new country enables me to understand a family’s needs at critical points in the resettlement process, not only for the spouse, but also for the children. I look forward to welcoming you to our beautiful city.