We are a licensed Canadian immigration consultancy based in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, serving clients across Canada and around the world. Our name is a promise about how we work, and we are happy to be held to it.
Behind every application is a person. Behind every person is a story.
At Ubuntu Worldwide Immigration Consulting Inc., we know that immigration is never just about forms and documents. It is about:
We understand because we have been there too. Ubuntu was built on the belief that no one should have to navigate such an important journey feeling alone, confused, or unheard.
We take the time to listen to your story, understand your goals, and help you find a pathway that is right for you. We believe in honest advice, careful work, and telling you the truth, even when the truth is not what you hoped to hear.
Because your immigration journey deserves more than someone who simply fills out forms. It deserves someone who cares about what happens to you after the forms are submitted.
We are proudly rooted in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, while serving clients across Canada and around the world. Our work is grounded in community, because coming to Canada is only the beginning. Finding belonging, building connections, and creating a life here matters too.
We are regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, and we believe trust should be earned through both professionalism and accountability.
At Ubuntu, we bring expertise to the process, but we never lose sight of the human being behind the application.
Your story matters. Your future matters. You matter.
That is Ubuntu.I am because we are.
Ubuntu: I am because we are.
The name is a southern African philosophy, and it is the reason the practice runs the way it does. A person is a person through other people. Your outcome is bound up with the people around you, and ours is bound up with yours.
In practice it means we treat an immigration file as a family file. A refusal is rarely just a refusal. It is a marriage delayed, a semester lost, a parent who does not meet a grandchild. We treat that as the substance of the work rather than the sentiment around it.
Our founding principleSooToday profiled our founder, Mary Ogenyi-Igoche, in its Helpers series: how she arrived from Nigeria, what she learned supporting refugee families and international students in Sault Ste. Marie, and why she went on to become a licensed immigration consultant. The piece was syndicated nationally through Village Media.
Read the article on SooToday →
Our values
Four people, each responsible for a different part of getting you a decision. You will meet most of us at some point in a file.
Mary came to Canada in 2019 as an international student and became a Canadian citizen in July 2024. She founded Ubuntu Worldwide to close a gap she kept seeing: people with strong cases losing them to paperwork, and people with weak cases being sold hope.
As a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant with Immigration and Refugee Board authority, she represents clients at hearings and appeals, not only at the application desk. That authority matters most when something has already gone wrong, and it is why refusals and appeals sit at the centre of the practice rather than at its edge.
Her background as a Registered Social Worker shapes how the firm runs. Immigration files are family files. A refusal is a marriage delayed, a semester lost, a parent who does not meet a grandchild. Mary treats that as the substance of the work rather than the sentiment around it, and she built a practice that asks about the family before it asks about the forms.
She also serves as a Commissioner of Oaths for Ontario, which means statutory declarations and affidavits can be commissioned in-house rather than sending clients elsewhere mid-application.
She is currently completing a Master of Clinical Social Work at the University of Calgary, specializing in Community-Informed Practice for Health and Well-being.
Patrick runs the machinery behind the advice. Immigration work is won and lost on sequencing, and most files that fail do so on a date rather than on a legal argument.
He arrived at that view from two directions. Six years in banking, the last of them heading a branch, taught him what regulated recordkeeping costs when it is done badly: the audit that lands years later, the file that cannot prove what it did, the deadline nobody owned. A physics degree, two master’s degrees in Germany, in Biomedical Engineering at Heidelberg and Medical Photonics at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, and a working background in electrical engineering technology and programming taught him to treat a process the way an engineer treats a system: measured, documented, and built so its failure modes are known before they occur.
He owns the intake process, the document checklists, the reminder cadence and the record retention that a compliance audit six years from now will depend on. When a province changes a deadline or a programme quietly stops issuing invitations, he is the reason that change reaches every affected file rather than only the one whose consultant happened to read the notice. He also built this site, including the eligibility tools that let someone check a score or a threshold before booking anything.
And he manages the practical side of client communication: knowing when someone needs an update rather than an answer, and making sure nobody spends three weeks wondering whether their file has moved. Much of what clients experience as attentiveness is Patrick refusing to let a file go quiet.
Mariss is responsible for how Ubuntu explains itself to the people who need it.
She develops the social content, campaigns, marketing materials and visual communication that turn immigration rules into something a person can actually read. Canadian immigration is not one system but dozens, each with its own vocabulary, and most public explanation of it is either government prose or marketing. Mariss works in the space between, reaching newcomers, international students, workers and families with information they can use before they have ever spoken to a consultant.
Her background is in graphic design and digital marketing, and she brings that craft to a subject that badly needs it. She also holds the line on how the firm presents itself: no guaranteed outcomes, no invented statistics, no programmes advertised after they have closed.
Mark keeps the administrative side of the practice moving so the consulting side does not have to think about it.
He handles documentation, internal coordination and the organisational routines a file depends on without anyone noticing them: records filed where they can be found, processes followed the same way every time, information reaching the person who needs it before they have to ask for it.
In immigration work the administrative layer is not separate from the legal one. A document filed in the wrong place is a deadline at risk, and a process that runs differently each time is a process that will eventually miss something. His attention to detail is what allows the rest of the team to concentrate on the advice rather than the admin.
I came to Canada in 2019 as an international student, with a dream for my future and a lot to learn along the way. Like many newcomers, I had to learn a new system, adjust to a new environment, and find my place in a new country.
In July 2024 I became a Canadian citizen. That moment was deeply meaningful to me, because I knew the journey it took to get there. My lived experience is a big part of why I do this work.
Over the years I have worked with immigrants and newcomers through the City of Sault Ste. Marie, Algoma University and the Sault Community Career Centre. Some of it was interpreting for refugee families between English and Hausa. Some of it was meeting students at the airport late at night or in a snowstorm, or helping a family find somewhere to live in their first week. Those years let me see both the challenges newcomers face and the strength, resilience and hope they bring with them.
“Immigration is about more than forms and applications. It is about people, families, dreams, and the hope of building a life where you can feel secure and belong.”Mary Unogwu Ogenyi-Igoche, RCIC-IRB
I am a Registered Social Worker and a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant, licensed by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants under licence R731653. My licence carries IRB authority, which means I can represent clients at the Immigration and Refugee Board, not only at the application desk, and I am a Commissioner of Oaths in Ontario. Before becoming licensed I studied linguistics at the University of Göttingen in Germany, completed my Bachelor of Social Work at Algoma University, and studied Immigration and Citizenship Law at Queen's University. I am currently pursuing a Master of Clinical Social Work at the University of Calgary, specializing in Community-Informed Practice for Health and Well-being.
Today I bring together my professional experience, my immigration knowledge and my own lived experience to support clients through their journeys. Ubuntu Worldwide Immigration Consulting exists because of that combination. The name means I am because we are, and it is meant literally: your arrival and the community you are joining are the same story told from two sides.
Having walked this journey myself, I know how much it matters to have someone who listens, who tells you the truth even when it is not what you hoped to hear, and who genuinely cares about your next step. That is what I hope to offer every person who trusts Ubuntu with their journey.
Quality Business Awards Canada has named Ubuntu Worldwide the top-ranked immigration consultancy in Sault Ste. Marie two years running, in 2025 and again in 2026, each time on a quality score of 95 per cent or higher drawn from independent review sources.
The award goes to the top one per cent of businesses assessed nationally. We did not pay for it and we did not nominate ourselves. Winning it once is pleasant. Winning it in the first two years of the practice is the part we are proud of.
Verify 2026 →Verify 2025 →Every credential here links to a source you can check without taking our word for it. If a link is broken, tell us and we will fix it.
Information sessions, citizenship celebrations, community events and the everyday work of settling in. Hover to pause, click any photo to open it full size.
The most valuable thing we can tell some people is that the route they came for will not work. It is also the least profitable thing we can say, which is precisely why so few say it.
If your French sits at level 5 and Quebec needs level 7, you need six months of study, not an application. If you are an Ontario entrepreneur, the provincial stream was revoked in June 2026 and no amount of paperwork changes that. If your work experience was self-employed, it does not count toward the Atlantic programme however long you did it.
We say these things in the first conversation, before a retainer, because a client who spends two years on a closed programme is not a client. They are a complaint waiting to happen, and they are someone whose life we have wasted.
Ubuntu Worldwide is regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants. Our founder is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant with Immigration and Refugee Board authority, a Registered Social Worker, and a Commissioner of Oaths for Ontario.
What regulation actually buys you is fourfold: a public register you can search before you pay anyone anything, mandatory professional insurance, a binding code of conduct, and a complaints process that runs through the College rather than through us.
Immigration attracts unlicensed advisers because the stakes are high and the rules are opaque. If anyone offers to sell you a job offer, guarantee an approval, or asks you to sign forms you have not read, stop. Those are not aggressive tactics. They are the recognisable shape of a problem.
Canadian immigration changed more between 2024 and 2026 than in the decade before it. Programmes closed with weeks of notice. Two provinces removed entrepreneur streams entirely. The Quebec Experience Program shut in November 2025 and quietly reopened in July 2026 for a four-month window.
Most immigration websites are archaeology. They describe a system that existed when the page was written, and nothing tells you when that was. We take the opposite approach: where we quote a threshold, an allocation or a deadline, we say when we checked it and where it came from.
It also means we correct ourselves in public. When our own research found that the Atlantic allocation had been cut from 5,000 to 4,000 rather than increased, we changed the page and said so rather than leaving the friendlier number up.
This comes directly from our founder's background as a Registered Social Worker, and it is the reason the practice is structured the way it is.
A refusal is almost never experienced as a legal event. It is a wedding postponed, a semester lost, a business that cannot open, a parent who does not meet a grandchild. People arrive at our office carrying that, often after months of silence from a system that does not explain itself.
So we ask about the family before we ask about the forms. We explain what is happening in the language you think in. And we do not let a file go quiet, because the not knowing is frequently harder than the answer.
The name of the firm is a southern African philosophy: a person is a person through other people. It is on the door because it describes an obligation, not a mood.
Free, thirty minutes, no obligation
We look at your actual profile against every route that is genuinely open, not the two or three you have heard of. You leave this conversation knowing whether you have a case, which programme fits, and what would need to change if the answer is not yet. If there is no viable route, we tell you in this call rather than after a retainer.
A written agreement, a fixed fee
You receive a written retainer setting out exactly what we will do, what it costs, and what falls outside it. Fixed professional fees, disbursements listed separately, no hourly surprises. Our regulator requires a written retainer, and we think that requirement exists for good reason.
The part that decides the outcome
Document collection, credential assessments, language testing strategy, and the written submissions that frame your case for the officer who will read it. Most refusals we review were not weak cases. They were strong cases presented badly, with the decisive fact buried on page forty.
You will not be left wondering
We file, we track, and we tell you when something moves. If a request for further information arrives, we handle it inside the deadline rather than forwarding it to you with a week to spare. If a programme changes mid-application, you hear it from us first.
Where most firms stop, and we do not
An approval is the beginning of obligations, not the end of them: landing, the residency obligation, permit conditions, business performance agreements, employer compliance records. A refusal has deadlines of its own, and reconsideration or appeal windows are short. Either way, we stay in the file.
Yes. Ubuntu Worldwide is regulated by the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants, the federal regulator for immigration consultants in Canada.
Our founder, Mary Ogenyi-Igoche, is a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant with Immigration and Refugee Board authority, which allows representation at hearings and appeals rather than only at the application stage. She is also a Registered Social Worker and a Commissioner of Oaths for Ontario.
You can and should verify this on the CICC public register before engaging anyone, including us. An adviser who discourages you from checking is telling you something important.
We are in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and we serve clients across Canada and internationally. Most of our work is done remotely, in whichever language you are most comfortable in.
Location does matter in one specific way. Sault Ste. Marie is one of fourteen communities in the Rural Community Immigration Pilot, so we work with employer designation, community priority occupation lists and the settlement side of that programme directly rather than reading about it. For employers in the region considering designation, that is a practical advantage.
Being in Ontario also shapes what we are willing to say. Ontario revoked its entrepreneur stream in June 2026, and we tell Ontario founders that plainly even though it sends work elsewhere.
We work on fixed professional fees set out in a written retainer before any work begins, with government fees and disbursements listed separately. No hourly billing surprises.
The first consultation is free and lasts about thirty minutes. It is a real assessment rather than a sales call, and a meaningful number of them end with us saying that now is not the time to apply.
We do not guarantee outcomes, and nobody honestly can. The decision belongs to an officer applying published criteria. Any consultant who guarantees an approval is either misunderstanding their role or misrepresenting it, and in both cases you should walk away.
Mary provides the regulated advice and representation, because under Canadian law only a licensed consultant or lawyer may do so. She is the person accountable for the strategy on your file.
Around that, Patrick manages the operational side, deadlines, document flow and the reminders that keep a file moving. Maris handles scheduling, intake and day-to-day client care, and is usually the first person you will speak to. Mark looks after how we communicate, including the guides and tools on this site.
In a small practice you are not passed to a junior you never met. You will deal with the same few people throughout, which is one of the genuine advantages of not being a large firm.
Between our team and our interpreter network we work across more than twenty-five languages.
This is not a marketing line. Immigration decisions turn on precise wording, and asking someone to describe a marriage, a business or a persecution claim in their third language produces worse evidence. Where a file needs it, we arrange proper interpretation rather than relying on a family member to translate.
Tell us at the first call which language you would prefer and we will arrange it for the consultation itself.
That is a substantial part of our practice, and it is not an awkward conversation to have with us.
The first step in a refused file is ordering the officer's own notes rather than guessing at the reasoning. A surprising number of refusals turn on something the applicant was never told and would not have guessed. Once we can see what was actually written, we can advise on reconsideration, appeal or a fresh application on different grounds.
Deadlines here are short and unforgiving, so if you have received a refusal, please do not wait to see whether something changes. Bring it to us or to another licensed representative quickly.
If a previous representative did something you are uneasy about, we can explain how the College complaints process works. That is separate from us and does not run through our firm.
We write about changes as they happen, in plain language, and we date every figure. Follow the journal to see how we work before you decide to work with us.
From September 1, 2026 a single applicant must show $23,448 in living expenses, plus tuition and travel. The amount is only half of it. IRCC also assesses where your money came from and whether it will still be there.
Work permit holders can now study for six months without a study permit. The Hong Kong PR pathways closed on August 31. Eleven Express Entry rounds and not one of them general. Everything that changed, with dates and exact numbers.
A temporary public policy now lets valid work permit holders take a course of six months or less without a study permit. Here is exactly who it covers, what it does not do, and the mistake that could cost someone their status.
We write about changes as they happen, in plain language, and we date every figure. Follow the journal to see how we work before you decide to work with us.
