What does it take to run a human rights organization in Finland? I interviewed Kaari Mattila, the general secretary of the Finnish League for Human Rights, to find out.
Kaari Mattila began her studies in the University of Helsinki in 1991. She majored in international politics in the faculty of social sciences and minored in sociology and development studies. Kaari has been professionally active since her second university year and acted as HYY’s general coordinator of development cooperation and completed various internships. After graduation she participated in the European Union’s trainee programme for young Masters and volunteered with Kepa’s programme for a local child rights organization in Nepal. Kaari also compiled reports about her thesis’ topic, the exploitation of children as workforce, for SASK – the Trade Union of Solidarity Centre of Finland. Before returning to the university as a PhD student, she worked five years as an adviser for Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
“When I decided to leave the Foreign Ministry everyone thought I was crazy – to turn down a good, permanent position! But I wanted to continue my research. When something interests me I am ready to go for it. Of course I have been very privileged and come from a secure background, but making decision based on the content and substance of a job or project has worked very well for me.”
Kaari stresses the importance of the many privileges she had and the opportunity to study in a time when the welfare society truly supported students and academic freedom. She also comes across as being very determined and hard working, as her well-constructed PhD thesis proposal opened the doors for the University’s graduate school for researches.
“That was like winning the lottery. Doing PhD requires funding and guidance and I received them both. Having worked fulltime before starting my PhD really motivated me to get it done without dawdling. I was also teaching a lot and had my children during that time, which caused some delays with the research, but also made me work very efficiently.”
In 2011, shortly before Kaari defended her doctoral thesis Domestic labour relations in India: vulnerability and gendered life courses in Jaipur, she took a job as the policy director for Amnesty’s International Finland’s Section. She has been working with her current job at Ihmisoikeusliitto – Finnish League For Human Rights for four years now. Even though work has taken her earlier around the world – India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Philippines – Kaari now sees her future in Finland.
“I’m very happy with my current job. Working in poorer and highly unequal countries has given me a sense of proportion: I understand how good many things are in Finland but recently, laws weakening human rights protection have been passed also here. We are living in interesting times and I believe I have something to give. Running an organization takes plenty of work and it is not something you should commit to only briefly.”
Having researched labour in different surroundings, Kaari values her opportunity to take part in determining how the organization is run and to try to make sure the operation models are ethical.
“For example we have volunteers who would like to assist us around the clock, but that is not okay, we can’t let people exhaust themselves with volunteering. I don’t think I could work at an organization where I should compromise a lot in this matter.”
When asked about the requirements for her current position, Kaari mentions language -, communication -, and economic skills. She also raises two important areas of focus: leadership and expertise. The former includes skills from human resources to strategic visualising. The latter differs from big organizations, where the directors concentrate on leadership and management. Since the Finnish League for Human Rights is a rather small organization, a great part of Kaari’s job is to act as an expert and an adviser.
“It is great but also makes the job quite heavy from time to time. One of the most important skills in this sector is not aiming first and foremost to be nice but to be firm!”