Ryszard Zywotkiewicz
Engineero made it possible
Ryszard and René are a friendly and energetic couple from South Africa, who moved to the Netherlands in December 2021 to work and live here. We like sharing their story, what they have been through and how the process from introduction to moving to the Netherlands was with the support of Engineero.
My name is Ryszard. I’m from South Africa as well, Johannesburg to be precisely. I graduated in 2017 from the University in Pretoria as a Mechanical Engineer. From 2018 on I worked at the same steel manufactory as René. This is where René and I met, we worked in the same plant. I am also working as a mechanical engineer at Engineero. Besides work I like to get creative with photoshop and produce music.
I’m René. I’m from Pretoria, South Africa. I graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from the University in Pretoria. After that I started working at a steel manufactory in Pretoria. I now work as a mechanical engineer at Engineero. Besides work, I love traveling.
How did you get in touch with Engineero?
One of our colleague at the manufactory was approached by Bjorn Markerink the director of Engineero. Our colleague knew that we were looking for work in Europe, so he asked us if he would refer us. We were looking for work in Europe because we knew that South Africa didn’t have enough opportunities for us. We said yes! So then we got an e-mail from Bjorn Markerink.” - René
“We had a nice house, but there is a job shortage in South Africa. And because we didn’t have many options, we decided that moving would be worth it. We agreed to have an online meeting via Teams.” - Ryszard. ''We had two meetings. They were so easy! We really wanted the job, so of course we were a bit nervous. Bjorn was very relaxed though. We had a second interview with Wouter Schrotenboer. This time it was more intimidating because he asked us a lot of technical questions.''- Rene
How was the support from Engineero during this whole process?
We knew that we wanted to live in Europe. We chose the Netherlands because René said the Netherlands was awesome. She had connections there.
''After we decided we wanted to move, Engineero applied for a Skilled Migrant Visa. This is a Visa with a residency permit for 5 years. We had to wait for Renés Visa to be approved. When Engineero confirmed that the Visa for René was approved we resigned our jobs and started planning the move.'' - Ryszard
“We moved out of our house and moved in with my mom with the intend to stay there over the weekend, until we could depart. The plan was to start in November at Engineero, but then Covid happened. We bought plane tickets from South Africa to the Netherlands for early December. On the day that we were having our farewell party they canceled all the flights! We couldn’t fly until the 20th of December. ”- Rene
On December the 21th we landed safely in the Netherlands.We felt really welcome. Bjorn took us to our new home in Hengelo. The first week we had to order everything online because of the lockdown. Engineero payed for everything we bought for the house. Bjorn was really helpful, he even lent us his trailer René explains.
“Hengelo is the best though. We live in a really nice house with 3 bedrooms and 1,5 bathrooms. We also have a garden. The area is really great. Everything is within 500 meters, from groceries, to café’s, to shops. Until March we assisted in small projects at Engineero. Then we started our new project at Selo. We speak English with our Dutch colleagues. We are now looking for a hobby and would like to meet more Dutch people. In our free time we love to walk and go for bike rides. We like to explore the Netherlands.”- Ryszard
What's the difference between living in the NL vs. SA?
The big difference between living in the Netherlands vs. South Africa is that you feel much safer, you have constant electricity and no water interruptions. Wich may sound weird, but in South Africa that is an issue. In addition the Netherlands has good public transport and you can cycle on really nice bike lanes!”- Rene. The roads are so much better. Great infrastructure” Ryszard adds. “Dutch people are very welcoming. We do need to get used to the way Dutch people eat though. We are used to eat a lot of meat. In the Netherlands they don’t, so it’s way more expensive.” René says.“Also living in the Netherlands is more expensive, but we are still better off here. Engineero really helped us out a lot, we would definitely recommend this company to other engineers in South Africa.
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