Archive for June, 2010

The other day when I was collecting my child’s report card, I was speaking to another parent. She is Indian and her child is attending Chinese School like my child.

What is amazing, is the fact that she has planned for her child’s education from very early on. She has another child who is at the moment attending a Chinese kindergarten. She sent both kids to Chinese kindy from age 4 and in addition to that they have a private tutor coming in to teach them Chinese. She says I have to do this because we are not Chinese and I don’t speak Chinese.

Imagine that. What focus. She knows exactly what she wants for her kids and plans for it. Not like me. I don’t speak Chinese at all too but I remember I was still half minded and undecided about Chinese school right up to the first day of school! No plan at all. I was playing ding dong between Chinese School and Kebangsaan school and could not make up my mind.

As a result the kids were not prepared the way she had prepared her kids. They attended a normal kindy with only an hour of Chinese. My first child could not speak Mandarin by the time she started Primary 1. Looks like I have not learned from my mistake. The second child still does not know  how to speak Mandarin and he is going to Primary 1 in 6 months. Whereas this parent, of Indian descent has a kid who spoke fluent Mandarin by the time he attended Primary 1.

I’m afraid, I can’t look that far when it comes to my kid’s education. I have met parents who have all their children’s education fully mapped out. Where they want to sent them to Secondary Education and further Education etc. As for me, I haven’t looked beyond the Primary Years yet and am still undecided.

In order to renew your work maid’s work permit, you will have to go through the following steps but not necessarily all of them. I have provided links to my posts about each step in more detail.

Note: I am referring to Indonesian maid only for my post.

1. Renew your maid’s passport. You will need to do this only if the passport expiry date is not enough to cover the work permit extension date. For example, my maid’s passport expires in May 2011. Her work permit is till July 2010. Extending the work permit till July 2011 will mean that her passport expiry date is not enough to cover the work permit period. As a result, I have to renew her passport. Take note that when you renew the passport, it is for a period of 3 years and the date begins from the date you renewed the passport, not the date of expiry eg. in our case, the 3 years does not begin from May 2011, it starts from April 2010 ie the date of renewal.

How I renewed my maid’s passport at the Indonesian Embassy.

2. Register your maid with FOMEMA for health screening. This is mandatory for the first 3 years. If you are renewing work permit for year 3 going forward to year 4 onwards, it is not compulsory but you can still do it if you want to.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Step 1: FOMEMA

3. Take your maid for a medical check-up at a clinic of your choice. You choose the clinic at the  point of registering with FOMEMA. 10 working days after you have done the medical check-up, you can check your maid’s medical results online or call FOMEMA.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Step 2: Health Screening

4. Renew your maid’s work permit at the Immigration Department.

Renewing maid’s work permit – Final Step: Immigration

That is all there is to it.

This final step of renewing your maid’s work permit at the Immigration is almost too simple to blog about.

This is the Immigration Department of Malaysia’s Official Website.

Where?

The headquarters of the Department of Immigration, Malaysia (Ministry of Home Affairs) is in Putrajaya. You can renew  your maid’s work permit at any State Immigration Office. We did ours at the Wilayah Persekutuan of KL State Immigration Office at this address:

Jabatan Imigresen Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur
Aras 3, Blok I
Pusat Bandar Damansara
50550 Kuala Lumpur

Telefon: 20905632

How much?

The levy is RM445 to extend the maid’s work permit for a period of one (1) year.

Take note that as of time of writing, if you are renewing your maid’s work permit in Putrajaya, you will need to pay by bank draft, postal order or money order payable to Ketua Pengarah Imigresen Malaysia, if I am not mistaken. (You should always check the payee name by calling up the Imigration Department). However, the state Immigration Department of Wilayah Persekutuan KL accepts cash so I paid in cash. It’s easier for me. I don’t know about other states.

What to bring?

You will have to bring along with you, your maid’s new passport (if you have one), bring along your your maid’s old passport too together with the levy amount.

After checking that our maid  has passed her medical screening tests online at FOMEMA, we headed to the Immigration office. All it took was 15 minutes on a weekday morning, first thing in the morning and we’re done.

Next, a summary of all the steps required to renew your maid’s work permit yourself.

I did not blog at all during the school holidays so this part of my post has been delayed even though I have completed the whole process and renewed my maid’s work permit for another year.

This post is continued from the post Renewing Maid’s Work Permit – Step 1 FOMEMA

This step is really easy. After you have registered your maid for the mandatory health screening at FOMEMA, the next thing you have to do is take your maid to the clinic for a health screening.  There is nothing to this. It is just taking your maid to the clinic you have selected on the FOMEMA form for a medical check-up.

Previously, even though we paid our agent to handle the work permit renewal process, they still required us to do this ourselves. So there is no difference. Or shall I say, there is a big difference. We saved a lot of money doing it ourselves.

Do note that we selected a clinic with an X-Ray facility so that we did not have to do twice the work of running around. Everything can be done at one place.  You cannot select the X-ray center as each clinic has a preassgined X-ray center but you can certainly choose a clinic with X-ray facilities.

We merely gave the clinic the forms given to us by FOMEMA, and they did the rest. No payment is required here since we have paid for this when we registered at FOMEMA. It took us less than an hour to finish the blood and urine tests and X-ray. It could have been less if the clinic had less people but we went on a weekend morning. You can go during a weekday morning to save time.

Finally, 10 working days after the doctor examination, we were able to check our maid’s health status at FOMEMA-Result Online.

Next: Renewing Maids Permit Final Step: Immigration.

Due to some low rate of payouts among residents, the local residents association security guards service has been terminated in my area. Along with that, the spate of break-ins has increased.

One month after the termination, there was a spate of break-ins, three houses, just in my row alone and there aren’t that many houses in a row. Most of the break-ins occur around noon. That is when the houses are empty as most residents are out. Even those who are normally in may be out at this time for lunch, to fetch school going kids from school etc. That is when the thieves strike.

Just before the school holidays, there was a snatch theft right outside my kid’s kindergarten. Two ladies were walking by when a man on a bike tried to snatch one of the ladies’ handbag. The lady pulled back in ernest and threw her bag into the kindergarten where some teachers and some kids were waiting for their parents to pick them up. It was around noon.

The thief climbed over the kindy fence to retrieve the bag. A school teacher shouted at him. He climbed out again, minus the bag and a motorist hit him on his escaping bike (I am not sure whether it was on purpose but if it was, kudos to the motorist), his bike fell over and he made his escape on foot.

All this despite a newly errected guard house on the other side of the road of the kindy clearly within earshot. However, the guards’ (there were 2 or 3 around at the time of the incident) job was to guard the other side of the road for paying residents and not this side of the road for non-paying residents so……

We are not safe anymore. Time to go and review your homeowners insurance.

Make sure you have enough contents coverage under your homeowners insurance. Photograph or videotape your home and contents and keep those photos.

In case of a break-in, make sure you take photos of the scene with your digital camera. That is the good thing about digital cameras. Take all photos of the evidence so that it is easier for you to claim on your homeowners insurance later on.

However, the best thing you can do is to invest in the safety of your home. Get locks, alarms etc. We were told by the housing residents association members that the break-in thefts mostly target homes without alarms and locks that can be easily cut open or those that leave their front gates unlocked. Sometimes the thieves just walk right in, break a simple lock or grill and drive off with a whole load of electrical equipment and other expensive gadgets.