Hi, My name is Rob. I am a Scot by birth. I have been stuck in South Africa with my wife and 5 yr old son since 2006. We met while working for the same company and after 2 good years together in Scotland decided to marry. Our original plan was to come to SA to get married. My wife’s family is all from here and it was too costly for them to travel to the UK. Besides, the weather is far better for a wedding here. The currency was also very favorable. After we were married we looked round and decided to give “the new South Africa” a chance. What a mistake that has turned out to be! The work situation for white people only held out until 2009. I am a self employed builder and carpenter with some 12 years experience and many successful projects to my name. My wife Lee is hunting for a job at present, she was retrenched in December. Due to the fact that we have legislation here in SA that denotes which jobs can be given to whites and which have to be given to non-whites. Here I fall into problematic territory. There are practically no jobs that I can even apply for! We have been surviving on small jobs to keep money coming in, however the situation for whites here is getting worse. As a sole trader I am unable to apply for tenders, quotes etc. This makes finding profitable jobs almost impossible. The jobs that come in usually get me around 100 rand per day (equivalent to 20 US dollars per day). It is barely enough to feed the three of us. Food prices are rising rapidly here. We are getting nowhere! The downturn here made short work of what savings we had. The only saving grace has been that we have stayed out of debt. I honestly don’t know how much longer we can stay that way. You may be wondering where all of this is leading to, let me explain. We have applied for many jobs in the UK over the last 2 years. We have been accepted for several positions with included accomodation. As a UK citizen I can return with my family and work there. However, We cannot get enough money together to relocate the three of us back to the UK! Our target is 5000 US dollars. This will allow my family and I to get flights with some left over to see to emergencies. (with a five year old you never know!!!) Any donation is most appreciated by the three of us.