Photos: Amalia Osborne.
Arriving in New Zealand from Vietnam eight years ago on what was supposed to be a one-month holiday with their mum, sisters Alisa Pham and Vicky Ngo knew very quickly they never wanted to leave.
“I had never seen a sky so blue or so many trees in one place,” enthuses Alisa, before laughing that it was her sister Vicky’s dream of seeing penguins that made them choose New Zealand as a vacation destination.
Deciding to stay on student visas, the exceptional teens made history after both completing the full five years of high school in just 10 months – becoming the youngest people in New Zealand and Vietnam to be admitted to university.
Vicky, now 18, enrolled at AUT at just 13 and Alisa, now 15, followed in her adopted sister’s footsteps when she was only 11. But the genius siblings are now facing deportation when their student visas run out in October.
They’re desperate to become Kiwis and believe they qualify for residency under the skilled migrant category, but say they have been denied the chance to apply.
Their immigration advisor, former Minister of Immigration Tuariki Delamere, explains for legal reasons they cannot disclose why the government has declined them but they are currently appealing the decision.
“My sister and I love New Zealand and sincerely wish to remain in the country,” shares Alisa, who completed a Bachelor of Communications at 14 and is currently undertaking two Masters simultaneously – philosophy at AUT and psychology by distance through Harvard. “Even though we received Masters offers from MIT [for Vicky in 2020] and Stanford [for Alisa in 2021], we still turned them all down.”
Vicky, who’s parents adopted her at eight years old, has completed a Bachelor of Science, Masters of Philosophy in cyber security and machine learning, and at 18 is the country’s youngest PhD candidate.
She also works full-time for Air New Zealand’s cyber-security department.
But the girls, who have both received the Top 100 Global Child Prodigy Award, say they didn’t initially realise they were smarter than their peers.
For Vicky, it was excelling in maths and eventually making the NZ Olympiad team – although she couldn’t compete as she’s not a resident. “I thought, ‘Let’s see how far I can go academically.’”
At eight, Alisa was writing letters to the Minister of Transport to request a road crossing on the busy road she had to navigate en route to school. She tells, “There were lots of misspellings but it was me thinking about what I can do to solve an issue. That was my very first eureka moment.”
Since then, the sisters have overcome repeated adversity and hurdles on their path to success, including homelessness, financial hardship and online backlash.
During the Covid lockdowns, Vicky and Alisa’s mum lost her job and the trio ended up living out of a car for 13 months after their rental tenancy ended and their personal documents, including passports and bank cards, were lost.
Parked up at a local cemetery so they had nearby access to public facilities, the girls spent winter studying by streetlight through the night.
“In a place like that, it was really important to have our faith to keep us going,” explains Alisa. “It’s really easy to give up and push it on to society, but we just had to move on and prove everyone wrong.”
They say living in a cemetery was not as scary as the online backlash they’ve experienced accusing them of being a “sob story” to get residency.
Steadfastly resilient, Vicky explains this makes her more determined than ever to succeed in her career.
“I thought if I worked in cyber security, I could help my family and protect other children and girls,” she tells. “I’m finishing my PhD this year on government and national security. I want to be able to apply this to protect New Zealand.”
Despite these negative experiences, they’re incredibly grateful to live here, explaining in Vietnam, education and job opportunities for girls are far more restricted.
“There are 120 million girls globally who can’t get access to school,” laments Alisa, who wants to make the most of the opportunities she has and inspire other girls around the globe.
Looking to the future, Vicky and Alisa dream of becoming residents, contributing to the country and one day travelling the world in an electric vehicle together before returning to New Zealand.
“We can’t understand why being talented and studying faster is such a problem,” questions Vicky.
Alisa continues, “If you stripped everything away from us and we weren’t geniuses, I still want to believe we are good people who try to do what’s right.”
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