Exchanging intercultural handshakes – a story of reflection.

In this blog, Michael Suhonen reflects on his six-month work try-out at Familia. A time filled with intercultural encounters, honest self-examination, and moments of growth. He shares how meeting people from diverse backgrounds challenged old assumptions, deepened his understanding of privilege and prejudice, and reminded him that change begins with self-awareness. Michael invites us to consider the power of listening, learning, and, as he puts it, “handshake by handshake,” building a more inclusive world.

I started at Familia in February 2025, this year as a part of a TE-Toimisto work incentive to help me get back on my feet after a continuous time and difficult period of unsuccessfully securing work. Familia was kind enough to take me on as the Office Secretary for 6 months, and my role has been the day to day organising of the Finnish courses and communicating to our members.   

I chose the theme of this blog to be exchanging intercultural handshakes – a story of reflection because for this last 6 months I have met many intercultural people from all different backgrounds and gotten to know many of their stories on a personal level, which has helped me to develop my own character. My thinking is that handshakes, on mutual ground are often about acceptance, friendship and mutual respect, they form bonds between people on an equal playing field.   
​
Honesty and transparency are important for one’s personal growth. The blog had to have a reflective theme because Familia’s nature of work is introspective and joyfully progressive in its nature but also full of struggle and pain. One cannot help but to look closely at one’s own nature of character whilst working in such an organisation.

Having a lack of awareness

​As this is a blog about development, it is only fair to talk about my own misgivings. I do this from a place of learning and am not in any way comparing my situation to others. I was born and lived in a white British upper-class area of the UK, from 1980 until 2001. I had never met anyone from an intercultural background or even someone else from a different ethnic background in our small town. Racism wasn't discussed as we didn't have anyone of another racial background living in my childhood town of 4000 people to compare to. We were not taught about racism, structural racism, marginalization or prejudiced behaviour at my school. My books depicted white characters, white ideas, and white cartoon characters. I wasn't even aware I was born into white privilege. 

​Imagine my restraints and lack of knowledge that I carried with me throughout my own early adulthood, not being exposed to anything different until I went to university in 2001 at the age of 21 and even then, I wouldn’t say it was a huge change. I have always had a love and deeply care about people, but I lacked total understanding and knowledge. I might have even gotten into risky discussions and thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until I moved to Finland in 2009 that I would see life through the eyes of a foreigner, and be put in a minority group, which ultimately would change me and my own perceptions of how people are treated and being marginalized in society.  

My own development in FinlanD

​I admit that before coming to Familia I had certain negative attitudes, beliefs and prejudice feelings towards certain minority groups myself. I will not of course mention these as those beliefs showed a lack of understanding and severe weakness of my own character, however, Familia has given me the time and exposure to work through these failings and become more aware of my thoughts.  

​These feelings now have no business in my mind or thinking as they were based on false assumptions and were deep rooted from my own culture and childhood, which some might say is how you are conditioned, but I believe we all have the capacity to change and there is no excuse for not-changing and developing yourself in today’s divided world. I have only scratched the surface a bit about understanding the thoughts and feelings of these and other minority groups in Finland, due to the in-depth training videos that Familia teaches online and realised that everyone has their own deep struggles.  

I used to judge others a lot. As humans we are so involved in ourselves, our own problems, we blame and judge and take little time to think about what others have gone through. Some may have arrived in Finland from war-torn countries, others fleeing for their personal safety, others maybe born into minority groups that have prejudice thrusted towards them, some may be Finnish and born in a minority group and exposed to such unwanted judgements, that is so deep rooted that it affects their daily lives. We simply do not know. There are so many people in such different circumstances that feel in myself, what needs to be holding us together is to have better understanding, recognition, respect and most importantly love. I am working on developing that side of me, I am not perfect, but I am trying.  

Development in this area is not something that just happens overnight, it must come from within and the need to change ones thinking comes from a desire of being fed up with your way of thinking and seeing the negative things that are going on around you. Becoming aware of micro-aggressions, slurs, insults, violence etc and being present and opening your eyes to the smaller and bigger things that you see.  

Some people may they think they are developing themselves or even a good person if they have a queer or black friend, but then they should question themselves are they just Equity-washing over their own current existing old beliefs and presenting an illusion of commitment to racial equity or inclusion while still maintaining these old beliefs, practices or systems and doing nothing about it to change.  

​By having a queer or black friend doesn't make a person suddenly ‘cultured and open’. It takes more than that, to investigate the very core of why you want to change and much of this is looking hard inside yourself and perhaps connecting your own fears to something that made you think this way in the past, you're conditioning, forgiving yourself and healing through it. Being an ally to minorities is an ever-changing story, its hard work and we won't get what we say right the first-time, but we are there still speaking out and showing support.  

​I experienced for the 1st time in my life some prejudice, sexual and unwanted behaviour directed towards me being a foreigner in Finland, and it makes you wake up once you have experienced it in any shape or form. It makes you evaluate your own views and ideas. A human lifetime can be short so should we really be spending our lives giving time and space to bigotry, hate and violence. Do we really want to use our precious time for that? But we must change it and act on it if we see it, dismantle any discourse, racism and structural racism and call it out when we see it. 

I will never be perfect….and nor will you

I will never be perfect. I will screw up. I do not want to be perfect. Being human means that you have flaws, ideas that do not match and continued judgments and racist or prejudiced thoughts may emerge from time to time, everyone has this. I never want my ego to be bigger than myself, if I were perfect then I would have nothing to ever learn.  
 
​Working with Familia has taught me to recognise any misplaced thoughts or negative feelings as they surface, and I have time now to correct them and notice them when they emerge and to find out more. I have also learnt to not make assumptions or bold statements if I know little of the subject. Everyone is always so quick to put an opinion across but more often listening, shutting up or simply saying, I do not know, but I will find out is enough. We learn from those who are talking from painful experiences, who go through it daily and are seasoned in their understanding, these are great teachers and offer wisdom.  

I, like everyone will be in situations in the future where I might say something that might not be politically correct or may cause offence to someone, but now, I have learnt to stop, think, correct it or apologise if needs be and re-word or re-think it. It might feel uncomfortable to be called out, but I will take that feeling and learn from it.  
 
Nowadays terms and language around racism is changing and developing, there is no finite version of terms, and we shouldn't assume that everyone knows the most up to date concepts or words, therefore we should practise the decorum and be able to educate and correct others not in a derogative or condescending way, but with kindness and humility. We cannot expect people to never make mistakes, for instance toxic cancel culture towards people online who have slipped up mildly and said the wrong thing should not be bullied into fear, shame or humiliation by others. Thats ego. We all need to make mistakes to grow.  I have learnt that we will all make errors when talking about racism, especially if you are from white privileged background, as we have not been presented the tools to deal with this conversation, but we all need to stop and listen to people who live it in their daily lives and understand their feelings and start using our white privilege in ways to be a catalyst of change that educates others.   

An important learning whilst at Familia

I have learnt many things from all my colleagues at Familia, but one important moment came from a lovely colleague of mine, Tanja de Angel said to me that “our words matter”.  

I will explain why this was important to me and why it struck my heart.  

The stories we carry about ourselves have a powerful influence on how we interpret and respond to others' words. When we're deeply attached to certain parts of our identity, even small comments or words can feel like personal attacks. The ego, in many ways, is delicate, and it thrives on approval and struggles with anything that threatens our sense of self-worth. A single remark, even if it's meant to be helpful, can shake our confidence. Sometimes we react with anger, denial, or dismiss the person who spoke up, not because the criticism isn't valid, but because it touches a nerve. And then there are those comments that are meant as jokes, said carelessly, or even deliberately hurtful; they all have the potential to bruise others.  

We also always need to consider that youth and children are listening to everything we say. Do we really want to influence their thinking that they need to conform into certain roles or attach negative connotations to who they are or who others around them are?  

Words matter

What I’m hoping to learn further after Familia is how to face these moments and choose my words more carefully, in a way that helps me grow. To be a good ally. I want to respond and support others with more self-awareness and resilience so that each interaction strengthens, rather than weakens, the way I see myself and I know I am on the right track to developing myself and being aware how I act in the present moment, if I can do that.  
 
​If there is a lack of knowledge and open communication it can create for instance; polarization, marginalization and assumptions which ultimately in my opinion causes division. I can play a part in alleviating that in my life and in others by having a conversation.  

I learnt that it is important to always discuss and be open to new ideas and use words carefully to discuss fragile topics. Talking about difficult subjects creates normality and breaks down constructs, adds knowledge and lessens fear on subject matter.

I found that its ok to be curious and interested

Of course, we had some wonderful and very open conversations with many of my colleagues, whilst in Familia. What a refreshing change it is to experience this and talk about subjects that might not be deemed acceptable to discuss in other workplaces. Many of these subjects and topics we talked about whilst working at our desks, whilst sipping hot coffee, or in the break room were important to my own development. Somethings I didn’t know and would ask the person for more clarity; this then increased my knowledge a little bit more on the topic. I was allowed the freedom to discuss these thoughts and ideas and let them flow from a place of respect for the subject matter we were talking about. I was able to discuss these subjects constructively, even if I didn’t know much about the subject matter, without assuming or accusing.   

What I did whilst at Familia

There has been a lot to this work try-out! I felt that I was able to tackle the tasks I was given and, in the end, did my job that was assigned to me with conviction. I have met some amazing members from Familia, in our Finnish courses I have gotten to know many stories personally through a face-to-face activity that I co-branded with my colleague called KieliRetki, which was a new incentive to help integrate the people to experience cultural days out free of charge as a part of their learning in easy Finnish. The activity was branded because it would then make something that was a one-off activity more official. This activity offered people something that they may not have experienced before as many of our members are from challenging circumstances and KieliRetki gives attendees moments of togetherness, integration, joy and learning.  
 
The smiles and positive feedback that I have received from the participants of the Finnish courses meant that I played a small part in their journey to them leading a better life in Finland by helping them enrol on the course. Many of these people will go forward with their language journey and I pray, will secure good work in Finland; this will help generations to come. Before Familia I was an entrepreneur for 7 years and owned a milkshake bar franchise in Finland. 

I didn’t know what I was good at from a workplace perspective but I have found that my organisational and customer service skills have been brought back to my attention, and I will try and find meaningful work in this sector, preferably with something that holds value and meaning to make others' lives a bit better.  

THANK YOU TO FAMILIA

I will always be truly grateful for the team, interns and especially my boss Elina at Familia, as well as many of our members who made me feel whole again. I have met so many interesting, charged and kind-hearted people within these 6 months that are strongly helping to make change for those that are marginalised and discriminated against in Finland. I truly feel blessed to have met them and hope for a continued relationship with Familia in some capacity after I have left. After Familia I will have a challenging task of finding work. There are challenges with unemployment in Finland right now as we all know, but I hope that someone out there will see my value and worth and hire me to a job that I can add my worth to and help more people.  
 
Familia’s mission truly has a long way to go and is never ending in its uphill climb, but one by one, smile by smile, protest by protest, member by member, every change in government policy for the better, every kind word that we give each other, every development that we make in ourselves for the better....handshake by handshake helps to create the change, acceptance and growing mission of “our diverse and wonderful Familia” in Finland.   

Written by: michael suhonen