“I wanted to find a way to get more connected to the Finnish mindset and lifestyle, but also to become more employable”, she shares. “I met someone from Familia who was giving me tips regarding my CV and she suggested volunteer work. Her professionalism, her energy made an impression on me.”

This autumn Valéria led workshops about Brazilian music for learners of Portuguese to become more familiar with important cultural moments in Brazilian history. The workshops included exercises and discussion to contextualise these cultural moments through songs of the era.  The Portuguese club was part of Familia's language club activities. For Valéria, the best thing about volunteering at Familia was the freedom to develop her own activities. “Familia gave me great freedom to develop my idea […] and was very open to my proposition.” ​

“What’s the point with my volunteer experiences? Exchange: exchange of experiences and exchange of stories.” says Valéria, “I have lived in 6 countries and I really enjoy knowing different things, meeting different people, listening to their stories and telling my own stories.” Volunteering in Familia was also a way to challenge some assumptions about Finland. “After my experience with Familia, I felt that [Finland] is a friendly environment and I just have to go a step further to integrate. […] I learned that Finns are very open, welcoming and curious about things.” she says, “It’s about sisu!” ​

Camilla Bergman

This week we are celebrating our volunteers by sharing their stories in the Duo Blog. We are currently looking for new volunteers to run multicultural and multilingual activities. If you are interested in leading activities in your language please fill in the volunteer application on our website or contact Familia’s volunteer coordinator, Camilla Bergman be email at camilla.bergman(at)familiary.fi. ​

Veronika and Sonja have shared many good moments together and as a group. "I feel we had a good atmosphereas a group, but also got to know each other personally”, Sonja shares. “For example sometimes we went home just the two of us after the session and shared more personal things. The people of course are the most important and best part."

​Even though the official meetings ended, Veronika and Sonja still stayed in touch with the group. “After the official sessions have ended the girls started to initiate different activities themselves. We went to a farm together to see animals”, Veronica shares, ”It was great to see that people bring something of themselves and are volunteering to organise activities.”

The Duo Mother & Baby Group’s structure brought reassurance to Veronica and Sonja as facilitators. “If someone wants to try to facilitate a group it’s a good way to practice because there are two people to share the tasks, two brains”, says Veronika. However, in the end it’s the group itself who makes the experience. Sonja shares: “It’s more like the group is creating the whole thing. We just give starting points and then it’s the whole group together directing it. And the kids enjoy it a lot!”

Camilla Bergman

This week we are celebrating our volunteers by sharing their stories in the Duo Blog. We are currently looking for mothers to lead and participate in Duo Mother & Baby groups next year. If you are interested in the Duo Mother & Baby Group please fill in the volunteer application on our website or contact Familia’s volunteer coordinator, Camilla Bergman be email at camilla.bergman(at)familiary.fi.

Komal, Noel and Celine are part of Love is not tourism -movement, that has been actively campaigning for partners and families that haven't been able to see each other this year. Global pandemia has caused travel restrictions especially from the third countries to European Union. These are the stories from the people that are desperately missing their partners and family members.

Me and my husband are both Indians but were residing in Finland since 5 years with A type residence permit.

We came to India for a short trip in February 2020 and got stuck here due to pandemic. My husband managed to return to Finland in May 2020 but me and my daughter’s residence permits expired so we could not return.

​We are desperately waiting for the embassy in India to reopen visa services so that we can reunite with my husband. Our daughter is desperately missing her dad and missing her school and education.

​My fiancé lives in Lebanon and it’s getting tough to get him a visa since the visa center in Beirut is closed. I found out that in Turkey they’re partially open but I’ve been calling them and they haven’t answered.

We are planning to see each other in Istanbul next month but not sure if we will be able to get there, if there will be flights. Now I’m trying to get him a visa to come to Finland in December. We were planning to meet many times during spring and summer but because of the restrictions, everything was always canceled.

​We were planning to get married in February 2021 but now I think that’s not gonna be possible.

I’m an Indian citizen. My husband and I have been separated since June 2020. He is new to Finland and has a A type resident permit. He is alone and finding it difficult mentally to manage alone. He also got severely sick and has no one to take care of him. I contacted the Finnish Embassy in New Delhi several times, more than 10 calls since June. Their response every time was that they can’t provide any type of visas or travel documents unless Finland lifts its travel/visa ban.

Once I called Chennai consulate. They said that our personal relationship doesn’t matter. They only do what the government decides. I told the embassy that my husband is sick in Finland with no one to take care of him, and they replied that’s “not their responsibility”. How cruel...

​Being separated too long affects us both physically and mentally. Please help. What’s the point of declaring family reasons as “essential travel” if they don’t give us visas to enable us to travel? Is it so much fun for the authorities to see the struggle of separated couples?

I moved to Finland sometime before my husband as to get an apartment and so our elder daughter would start school. When my husband moved, he was so happy to know he could spend six months with our baby boy before he would turn three and join the education system. My husband expressed his amazement, for a country to give such an opportunity, being able to reconnect and close the distance that grew between him and his son whom he had missed while he was away.

Soon our son was at day care, my husband was placed with an unsuitable group by the Employment Office (TE-toimisto) and he started drifting away in front of my eyes. He was absent minded, tried to join conversations but was too sensitive to talk about anything, and turned from a healthy race driver into a very poor shape. He was a walking dead man who looked like my husband. I was never so worried as I was then.

Before summer he managed to find a suitable integration study program and convinced the Employment Office to let him take a part in it. Suddenly he was with similarly educated people from all around the world. He started to get out of that scary place. He was also called for few races in Morocco, France, Italy, Dubai and Oman, so he got to see his racing buddies.

​By mid-summer my old husband was back and we were able to talk at last. He tried explaining the feelings he had. He started crying and explaining that he is so disappointed in himself for being so weak. That was the moment that it hit me, how many men are raised up to think that feeling is weak. My beloved husband needed to know he was the most amazing man but he is a human being too.

​He never realized that he had the right to look at his own feelings, his own happiness and well being. And that does not make him any less manly nor weak. We discussed and he agreed that he might need help before next winter. As a Finn who has lived most of my life outside of Finland I did not know other than the healthcare centre to seek help for him.

Imagine being asked, What is being heard? "Mitä kuuluu!"
And the response, Good. “ Hyvää, Kiitos.” Thank you.
But the question, “Mitä kuuluu?” is “What hears?” literally. "Entä sinä?" And, you?
"Ihaan hyvää, kiitos." Yes, perfectly well, thank you. Like saying, one hears good things.
Except, that they are not responding about the functionings of their auditory senses, but, they are telling you that they are doing well. Which is what they asked you about in the first place…

​Or, how about going into a burger joint and being greeted with Tuuna burgerisi?.. which I quite innocently thought meant “D’ya want a tuna burger?” Only to realize it was their clever usage of English, though not in the way you’d imagine.

And, so my days in this land are days of discovery and laughter. There is always something that can “Tul-la pus-kis-ta.” Something can come out of the bushes, a surprise that can get sprung on you.
​
​Just like when I did a double-take — when I was told that what I had proposed -- fitted like a fist in the eye! I thought they meant that I had given them a sock in the eye!
Seems, I could relax after all. All it harmlessly meant was that the proposal suited them perfectly. And that is perhaps, how I came to be with my Finnish man. Yes, the proposal suited me fine, just like a fist in the eye, sopia kuin nyrkki silmään.

Mary Ann Alexander

​Published in Duo blog with Mary Ann´s permission
First published in Mary Ann´s personal blog

Tänä syksynä Familiaan saapui uusia kasvoja! Tutustu Camillaan, Familian uuteen vapaaehtoistoiminnan koordinaattoriin.

Kuka olet?
Olen Camilla Bergman, Familian uusi vapaaehtoistoiminnan koordinaattori. Koulutukseltani olen melkein valmis ranskan kielen FM ja aloitan yhteisöpedagogin opinnot HUMAKissa tänä syksynä työn oheessa. Lisäksi minulle on kertynyt neljän vuoden kokemus nuorten vapaaehtoisten johtamisesta, globaalikasvatuksesta ja kansainvälisen vapaaehtoistyön kehittämisestä esimerkiksi AIESECissa, Taksvärkissä ja EYPssä. Suomen lisäksi olen asunut ulkomailla Ranskassa, Perussa ja Romaniassa. Vapaa-ajallani tykkään ulkoilla, kuunnella podcasteja ja leipoa.

Miksi Familia?
​Innostuin alun perin järjestötyöhön, kun olin 2 kuukautta vapaaehtoisena Perussa. Järjestötyön monipuolisuus antaa puitteet kehittyä monella eri tavalla eikä järjestöissä ole koskaan tylsää päivää. Familiassa minua kiinnosti erityisesti järjestön merkityksellinen missio ja mahdollisuus saada aikaan kestävä muutos pieneen järjestöön.

Mitä tuut tekemään? ​
Tulen toimimaan Familian yhteyshenkilönä kaikkeen vapaaehtoistyöhön liittyen joulukuun 2020 loppuun asti. Lisäksi tulen rakentamaan Familialle uusia toimintamalleja ja kehittämään vanhoja. Minuun voi siis olla yhteydessä vapaaehtoistyön aloittamiseen, toiminnan järjestämiseen tai toiminnan kehittämiseen liittyvissä kysymyksissä. Uskon, että järjestämällä ja kehittämällä Familian vapaaehtoistoimintaa voimme vaikuttaa positiivisesti monen ihmisen elämään!
Ota yhteyttä! :) ​Camillaan voi olla yhteydessä sähköpostilla osoitteessa camilla.bergman@familiary.fi tai puhelimitse 050 502 1039.

​Who am I?
My name is Camilla Bergman and I am the new Volunteer Coordinator at Familia. My educational background is in French language and I am about to start a new degree as a Community Educator at HUMAK UAS. I have 4 years of experience leading youth volunteers and working with global education as well as developing international volunteering activities in organizations like AIESEC, Taksvärkki and EYP.In addition to Finland I have lived in France, Peru and Romania. In my spare time I enjoy walking in nature, listening to podcasts and baking.

Why Familia?
​I became interested in working in NGOs after I spent 2 months volunteering in Peru. I love the variety of NGOs that allows you to develop yourself. There is never a boring day working in an NGO! I was drawn to Familia because of its important mission and the possibility to make a lasting change on a small organization.

What will I be doing?
​I will be working as the contact person for Familia’s volunteers until end of December 2020. In addition to this I will be developing old and new frameworks for volunteering with Familia. You can contact me about any questions regarding starting volunteering, organizing or developing activities. I believe that by organizing and developing Familia’s activities we can make a positive impact on many people’s lives!

Get in touch! :)
You can contact Camilla by email at camilla.bergman@familiary.fi or by phone at 050 502 1039.

Hei!

My internship at Familia has come to an end. I am happy that I had a chance to be a part of Familia and contribute to meaningful work. As a part of my responsibilities, I met 14 different people, both Finns and foreigners, who shared stories about their paths on employment, integration, and well-being in Finland. We discussed what getting a job in Finland means for integration, what are the best ways to expand one's network, how to master the Finnish language and much more. You can find the Path Ambassadors articles here.

I must admit that I got many insights during my internship, both from the people who participated in the interviews and my observations. This was my first time working at a Finnish office and I would like to share the main takeaways:

• Don’t hesitate to ask if something is unclear. During my first days at the office I wasn’t aware of how practical things worked, such as who switched the lights off when leaving the office, how to book meeting rooms, etc. Unless I asked, I would never know! Asking questions and getting answers made my on-boarding process a lot easier.
• Freedom of choice, ability to take responsibility and initiative are valued. It was surprising to me that although I had a supervisor, I was given a lot of freedom to decide how I would like to do my work. No one would come and check my progress every hour. For me, it is a great feature of the Finnish working culture. I felt responsible for my actions and am grateful that I was trusted as a colleague and employee.​
• There is room for flexibility. As long as the work was done (well!), I was free to leave the office earlier or come later the day after.
• Speaking at least some Finnish is a benefit for a foreign employee. Although I managed to work in English, there are still a lot of things at work that happen in Finnish, such as team building activities, internal meetings, and communication between colleagues.

These were the most important points that I wanted to share. I hope you find some of my observations and notes helpful for your own job search in Finland.

Take care,
​Daria

Words can have many meanings culturally as well as personally. The language we choose to communicate with should be considerate of the other person and sometimes, especially in multicultural relationships, you will have no idea beforehand that something you said, which you thought was harmless, could cause such a negative reaction. People can often be quick to react or feel hurt by certain words or phrases that evoke past negative experiences or feelings. We then cling to those specific elements and forget to listen to understand. We’d rather only listen to respond. This communication breakdown fails to resolve the issue. Without open and clear communication, we stay lost in translation and without compassion, we often fail to give our partners the benefit of the doubt.

As an American woman, I feel the English word “sensitive” can be very loaded and is often negatively used to belittle or to make others appear as weak. However, when my partner once used the Finnish word “herkkä” to describe me, which loosely translate to sensitive in English, my response was unnecessarily explosive because in that moment I could not consider how that word could be anything other than negative or even seen as a positive trait in Finnish language. We both had to exercise a lot of patience and compassion to overcome our misunderstandings and better understand one another.

If you feel upset by what your partner has said to you, it is important to explain how you feel but to also patiently and compassionately listen to their explanation. Maybe they meant something else entirely or even misused a word, particularly in a language that is not their native tongue. The best advice is to assume less and communicate more.

REFERENCE
De Botton, A. (2016, May 28). Why you will marry the wrong person. The New York Times.
​Retrieved from: nytimes.com/2016/05/29/opinion/sunday/why-you-will-marry-the-wrong-person

My Spanish-Catalan-Finnish-Colombian combo has now been living in Finland for about half a year. We moved from a town near Barcelona to a town in southern Finland, close to my parents. We’re enjoying the snow and the reasonably mild winter weather. We have had our ups and downs, but mostly it has been smooth sailing. Our children seem to be adapting to their new environment with relative ease. They miss Spain but life in Finland doesn’t seem so bad either - not for now, anyway. Our lives are somewhat uneventful but right now we’re happy that way.

Perhaps the biggest event for us in the past few months was Christmas. Our son got a set of collectable football cards for Christmas. Each card has a picture of a player, their skillset, team and home country. The other day, as we talked about where each football player was from, I asked our 6- and 7-year-old children where they themselves were from. My question in Finnish was “Minkä maalainen sinä olet?” which literally refers to nationality and country rather than origin. Still, their answer was clear as day: both said they were Spanish.

Now, here’s the thing: our children don’t have a Spanish passport. They were born and, until half a year ago, raised in Catalonia, Spain, but officially they are not Spanish. Even in Spain, they were foreigners, born to a Colombian father and a Finnish mother. Did that matter to them? No. Home as they know it is in Spain, so that’s where they’re from.

In saying they were Spanish, my children made me both delighted and a little bit sad. Delighted because clearly they have an idea of self, home and roots. Sad because I feel that our transition and integration to Finland has gone well, that the children’s Finnish is improving in leaps and bounds, and that they have made friends. This winter they have even started to learn all the seasonal quirks Finnish children have to deal with - how to slip almost effortlessly into a snowsuit (“Äiti, I look like an astronaut!”), how to stay up on skates and skis, how to sing more than one or two Finnish Christmas carols. Surely these experiences are proof that they are starting to feel at home in Finland? I held onto these small victories as justifications that we had done the right thing in moving countries.

I was also a little bit sad about my children’s answer because I too have felt that home is somewhere other than where I live, and I know it’s not always easy to deal with such a complex feeling. I badly want them to feel at home where they are. But 6 months is a very short time in a new place - it can take years to start feeling at home in a place, even for children who we tend to think adapt to change quickly. I should know - I lived abroad as a child and I’m still unsure of where home is.

Your home is often defined by a document saying where you are from. These documents may give you certain freedoms, or restrict where you can travel. For many official purposes, these documents do matter. They also matter in politics, whether you want them to or not. A passport can also give you a sense of belonging - an idea of where home is. But right now, and perhaps for the rest of their lives, what defines home for my children is the place they first knew as home, even if they were born foreigners to that place. It’s not a new phenomenon and it’s not unique to my family. People have moved across borders throughout history. Diasporas, refugee camps and multilingual families like ours provide continuous proof of that.

How, then, can we support our children who have left their home behind? I wish I knew. In our case, we are trying to keep up their Spanish language skills, stay in touch with their friends and, when the time is right, we'll visit our former hometown. But will that be enough for them to feel like they are connected to their Spanish home? I don’t know. Fortunately, my daughter has a backup plan: she says we could transport our old home in Spain to Finland. So if push comes to shove, maybe we’ll just have to do that.

(Reetta Savolainen)