# Trinidad to Greece - Advice please?



## nicole_23 (Apr 15, 2010)

Hi everyone! 

I am from Trinidad in the Caribbean and I would like to register with a school in Crete for a teaching course and hopefully work there after completing the course. The school will provide a letter to asisit me in my application for a student visa but there is no Greek consulate in Trinidad, the nearest one is in Caracas, Venezuela. I have a friend who travelled to Greece last year and applied for the tourist visa through Caracas but I will be travelling to London before going to Greece so I was wondering.. would I be able to apply for a Greek student visa from London instead?

Also.. if the student visa is granted to me and I complete the course.. would I be able to apply for a work visa from within Greece or would I be required to leave Greece and then return. And if so.. would I be able to apply for the work visa from London or would I have to return to Trinidad? The school promises to give job seeking assistance and says that 85% of their graduates are offered positions even before officially graduating which is very encouraging but I feel that I am at a disadvantage being from Trinidad and a non-EU citizen.. how difficult will this be for me?

I have travelled to a few Schengen and EU countries before.. Italy, Germany, Austria, England and Wales for vacations. Will this in any way help my visa applications?

I'm still in the preliminary stages of doing my research on making this huge transition. Any advice on this will be greatly appreciated!


----------



## wka (Sep 18, 2009)

Hi Nicole,

Is this the English language teaching school in Crete? I assume so although you don't say. In any case, I don't know the answers to all your questions but I can maybe answer some of them.

You should seek a student visa from the Embassy that has jurisdiction over where you are a permanent resident. Just traveling to London and going to the Greek Embassy in London is NOT going to work. The reason is that the Embassy has to vet you, and they can only do that for people in their jurisdiction. Make sure that Caracas has Trinidad in its jurisdiction. It is NOT always the closest embassy that has jurisdiction. It is important to find out! 

As far as applying for a work permit (not a visa - there is no such thing as a "work visa"): this is VERY difficult to do. You most likely cannot do this from inside Greece. 

Generally speaking, for someone like you or me (i.e., a person who is not from a member country of the European Union) to work legally in Greece, you have to apply for a Schengen visa from the Greek Embassy that has jurisdiction over your home country/locale, then once you arrive in Greece, you apply for a residence permit with work rights from inside Greece. You have to start this application within the first month of your arrival in Greece with your Schengen visa. To apply for the Schengen visa, you will need a letter from your employer stating that you have been hired, so you will already have to have a job. If you are already in Greece on a student visa and want to *change status*, you will have to determine before you leave Trinidad to come here if this will even be possible. Some changes of status ARE possible and others are not. I have never tried to convert from student to resident with work rights so I personally don't know the answer, but I *suspect* you would probably have to go home and start the process over again. I am converting from 1 yr residence permit with work rights to wife of a EU citizen 5 yr residence permit with work rights and I do not have to leave Greece to do this. 

I am an American working legally in Greece (the USA and Trinidad are in the same category so you will have the same rules as I do) and I can tell you from personal experience that it is VERY difficult to get a permit. I got a permit for 1 year only (this alone is difficult) and now I am marrying my Greek fiance which will make it all much easier - obviously that is not an option for most people!! I could have had my 1 year permit renewed for 2 years relatively easily though. I just chose not to go this route since we're getting married anyway.

I am guessing that the 85% of their graduates who got jobs were EU citizens (British mainly) who already HAVE the right to work in Greece. People like you and me who are not from the EU do NOT have rights here. We can ask and hope but we are NOT entitled whatsoever to the right to work in Greece. I wish you luck and I think you should ask the school for more details about how many NON-EU citizens got jobs and actually accepted them. You may find that they do not guarantee job-search assistance to people who are not EU citizens or who do not already have work rights in Greece. 

You ask about travel to other Schengen countries. This will in NO way impact your application. The only possible way to impact it would be if you over-stayed your Schengen visa at any point, in which case you may be in trouble, although I don't know. 

How long is the course? If it is under 3 months, you could come here on a tourist visa and complete the course, find a job, leave before the 90-day Schengen visa expires, go back to Trinidad, and seek a normal work permit with your employer's letter, and come back with a Schengen visa and start the permit process here in Greece. It is not a problem to be a student in Greece on a tourist visa if you are staying less than 90 days.

It's important to keep in mind that you, like me, have only human rights in Greece, not political / civil rights. So you need to be absolutely sure of what you need to do before you come over. The embassy may or may not know the answer - I have had really good luck with asking embassies for advice, other people have gotten really out of date and wrong advice there.


----------



## tpebop (Nov 2, 2009)

Hello. What do you know about the school in Crete ? 
How much are they charging ?
I would be very concerned about their promise to find work for 85% of students.
Work even for Greeks is very very hard to find !!!!


----------



## Penelopi2006 (Mar 7, 2011)

Hello Wka, 

Please, i would like to ask u something. Do u maybe know how i can make work visa if i am already in greece? I got some very good offer to work at one island and i am citizen of Serbia, non EU citizen. Is there any possibility to make work visa while i am already in Greece?
THANK U in advance!

Slaky


----------



## wka (Sep 18, 2009)

Hi Slaky,
Welcome to the forum!

Are you in Greece right now? If so, you probably will have to go back to Serbia to start the work permit process. Are you here on a Schengen visa now? If not, you will have to get one before you can get a work permit.

So, if you don't have a Schengen visa, the way it works is, you get your letter of job offer from the Greek employer, go to Serbia, make an appointment with the Greek embassy in Belgrade, fill out the Schengen visa application, and pay the fee they ask for. They will want some other papers too. Make sure to get a COMPLETE list when you call for your embassy appointment. Some embassies want more than others, and it also depends on your home country. For example, the embassy in the US wants a FBI report, but obviously the embassy in Serbia won't ask for that! It just depends - but most likely you will have to show evidence of having health insurance, a flight (or other travel arrangements) in and OUT of Greece (this may not apply to you since Serbia is so close to Greece), a statement from a doctor that you are in good health, and maybe some other documents as well. 

Once you have your appointment, you should get a Schengen visa, which will entitle you to come into Greece for 3 months.

Once you have your Schengen visa, which you may ALREADY have, I don't know, then you can apply for your work permit from INSIDE Greece - you don't do this from Serbia. But it's necessary to do this within the first 30 days that you are in Greece - what they care about is that there are at least 2 months still on your Schengen visa, because theoretically, the process takes 2 months (it can take FAR longer - years, even - but you are only required to have the 2 months on your visa).

To apply for your work permit, you will need to get chest x-rays and a TB test from a public hospital, get a letter from your employer saying he wants you to work there, a letter from your landlord saying you are living there, there is another fee, and there may be other documents they want as well. You will have to fill out another application through the Ministry of the Interior - depending on where you are living, how you handle this varies. If you are living on an island, you may be able to handle the entire process locally. I don't know where you are or will be so I can't say.

Your employer may have additional requirements to fulfill, like being able to prove that he advertised the position locally but couldn't get anyone with EU citizenship to fill it, but that is not your problem.

Once you have submitted your work permit application with all supporting documentation, you will be given a blue piece of paper with your photo on it which entitles you to stay in the country and work legally until an official decision about your work permit is reached. This decision can take over a year, but that doesn't really matter since you can stay in Greece once you get it.

Good luck - I hope you are successful. Congratulations on the job offer - those are hard to come by these days!!


----------

