Tag Archives: Helsinki

Panel Discussion: Integration Through Cultural Education

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In the light of current events regarding the refugee crisis and the huge immigration wave to Finland from all corners of the globe the question on integration is stronger than ever.

How to make the newcomers feel welcomed and that they belong to the Finnish community? How do these respective organizations see integration through culture and education? In other words, what does it mean to be integrated for each one of them? Is there a possibility to make everyone feel equal despite their country of origin, skin tone, mother tongue and religion? What role does education through culture of both children and adults play in this challenge? What are the issues in promoting interculturalism (multiculturalism) especially when it comes to integration?

The panelists are representatives of the public as well as the private sector. The fruitful discussion focused on integration through cultural education.

 

Panelists:

Ogechukwu Eneh, cultural producer from Caisa:

  • Mrs. Eneh is originally from Nigeria and came to Finland to study at the University of Helsinki approximately 30 years ago. She also worked at the University of Helsinki as a program manager for intercultural education.
  • Caisa is a multicultural center part of City of Helsinki Cultural Office which promotes development of cultural diversity and interaction between people in Helsinki through festivals, workshops, etc.

Margarita Sakilayan, project coordinator and project worker of Nicehearts of Vantaa:

  • Mrs. Sakilayan is originally from the Philippines and came to Finland around 10 years ago. She also has a master’s degree in Social Psychology from the University of Helsinki.
  • Nicehearts of Vantaa organizes various One current project called “Neighbourhood mothers” animates active immigrant women, who have been living in Finland for a long time already, educate and support other immigrant women in Finland.

Riitta Latvio, Project coordinator and executive director of Kulttuuri- ja uskontofoorumi FOKUS:

  • FOKUS builds bridges between cultures and religions via discussions, exhibitions, constructive dialogues, art and publications. Also, FOKUS promotes workshops during the World Interfaith Harmony Week, such as Islam and Fashion with the goal to educate children and teenager about the diversity of the Islam.

Eila Isotalus, Professional on intercultural competence development from Unidos:

  • Unidos supports customers when differences between cultures confuse or cause troubles, also supports people to benefit from cultural diversity. Unidos provides training and tools to understand multiculturality and to act smoothly in a multicultural environment.

 

Date and time: April 20th, 2016 at 10 AM in Think Corner Aleksi

If you are interested in watching our exciting panel discussion, check out the video on UniTube. 🙂

Place of Traineeship: Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki

daria

ICE Student: Daria Pritup

Place of Traineeship: Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki

“During my two month internship at the Aleksanteri Institute I will be assigned different tasks. Firstly, I will be helping out in administration processes such as updating the Institute’s website, write emails for the mailing list, write course descriptions for the online course platform Weboodi, help out with the organization of lectures and visits, and so on.

Secondly, I will be involved in a Master’s level course on business cooperation with Russia. Part of the course is an excursion to St. Petersburg, during which I will aid a small group of students with their tasks and participate in the organization of events.

Thirdly, I will have the opportunity to travel to Stockholm for the Nordic Conference on Romani Studies and participate in the lectures. I will be given the task to write an article about it for the Institute’s newspaper Idäntutkimus. I can choose the topic I would like to focus on freely.

Fourthly, I will work as a research assistant and help out with collecting materials, some of which will be in Russian or other Slavic languages.

My goal for the internship is to get acquainted with the inner workings of university administration and how my studies in Intercultural Encounters and Area and Cultural Studies can aid me in practice. Academia is obviously a very intercultural environment, which focuses on the exchange of knowledge and experience, so I believe I can definitely use my theoretical expertise as well as intercultural competence skills. I would like to get more comfortable with independent work and creative writing as well as develop my organizational skills. I chose the Aleksanteri Institute specifically, because it is the hub of Balkan studies, which are my minor subject, and because my language skills (Russian and Bulgarian) are relevant for the job.”

Management Events

What are the challenges to work in an international work environment? Additionally, what are the benefits to work with people from all over the world? What is it like to work in a professional field, such as international business? Those were the questions that I asked myself, since I will start my internship in an international company called Management Events in Helsinki. Thus, to get answers to my questions and learn more about this field and the working environment, I decided to interview my future employer Wouter Goedkoop.

Wouter Goedkoop is currently a Dutch team leader delegate operations service center and project manager for Management Events. At first, Wouter studied Hospitality Management in the Netherlands and later came to Helsinki 4 years ago for private as well as educational reasons. Currently, he works for Management Events, where he started off as an intern and continued after his internship, which he described as a fun learning experience, hard-work but also rewarding. During the internship as a research intern for the Dutch market Wouter learned a lot about customer services, events management, communication and gained cultural knowledge. Wouter did not only want to develop himself as a person, but by working in a highly international work environment he also gained a lot of cultural knowledge and people’s skills. For the future, he wishes to continue to develop himself as a person rather than develop his career. Also, he wishes to return to his initial field hospitality and dreams of having a small restaurant somewhere warmer like Australia.

Wouter described the work life in Management Events as “Americanized”, it is very social, where everybody talks to each other. However, it is also very target driven and fast paced. Working with diverse people is fun, he developed a lot of cultural knowledge and he joked that German and Finns are similar in a way. However, he also faced some cultural difficulties by working with Philippines, where the work ethics are different compared to the Western ethics.

Management Events started around 25 years ago as a convention service office with the former CEO Olli Muurainen. Later, the events started to be more invitations based only. Through the growth of the company more tasks and division have developed, and also the company expended in Finland, then Nordic countries, Europe and then also Singapore. It still plans on expending globally such as Japan and Dubai.

The interview with Wouter was definitely fun and engaging, and I am really looking forward to the coming internship! 🙂

INTERKULTfest 2016 by Interkult Kassandra

Hey fellow friends! 🙂

Interkult Kassandra is organizing a fascinating festival called “INTERKULTfest” promoting diverse performers and artists! This is a description on their amazing up-coming festival:

“INTERKULTfest, a performative art festival focusing on interculturalism, will be organized in 2016 in cooperation with cultural centers Stoa and Vuotalo during 21.–24.9.2016. The festival will be international, which means that there will also be invited performances from abroad in addition to national ones. Through the open call we’re looking for performances which deal with the thematic of the festival from a new perspective, fearless of taking a stand. We value forms of expression which are appealing to youngsters as well as urbanity. The main target groups are youngsters and young adults, but we are also looking for performances for children to meet the INTERKULTkids concept. The performance for children should be directed to children between 5 and 8 years of age.”

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Check out their web-page for more information here!