Popcorn is popping in the microwave and the scent of fresh coffee is wafting through the air, as coffee is being poured into a thermos.
Laakavuori Primary School in Mellunkylä is hosting a weekly ‘Welcome Families!’ evening. On a Thursday in May, the lobby is filled with chatter as old and new friends sit down to have coffee. More biscuits need to be picked up because they are clearly a favourite with the children.
One year of ‘Welcome Families!’ activities arranged by Helsinki
The activities are intended for families with children who attend preparatory education for basic education or other families that have recently moved to Finland. Shared activities have been carried out in suburban regeneration areas in Kannelmäki and Mellunkylä, and the activities will be expanded to Malmi in August – naturally, activities will also be hosted in these three places in June.
City of Helsinki Project Specialist Mia Heinonen says that she spent a long time thinking about the best way to offer these activities. She is a preparatory class teacher and has noticed how the integration of immigrant families is often personified in the preparatory class teacher.
Families have many needs and plenty of questions, and the teacher simply does not have the time for everything that a family who has come here would need for their integration.
Kannelmäki on Tuesdays, Mellunkylä on Thursdays
The first year has shown that ‘Welcome Families!’ activities were sorely needed. Individual meetings have attracted up to fifty families at best, and this time, the parents fill up one classroom and the children fill up another. The activities are hosted in Kannelmäki on Tuesday evenings and in Mellunkylä on Thursdays.
In the adults’ room, Heinonen and her colleague Fadumo Bulhan answer questions from the parents and talk about the activities planned for the coming summer.
In the meanwhile, Special Needs Assistant Suaade Aboude watches over the children. This evening, the children, for example, watch the Puudelin yö episode of the Täysi susi animation series.
In addition to project employees, family club evenings also include multilingual instructors and special needs assistants, making it possible to offer participants integration-enhancing activities.
Optimal integration
The principle of family activities is that anyone can join at any time, and no commitment is required.
Some of the families are actively involved from week to week, such as Nacer Eddine Hadjadj and Hadja Aicha Boudi and their children.
Hadjadj came to Finland from Algeria as a refugee. The family includes his wife and sons, currently aged 10, 14 and 19.
Hadjadj gives high praise to the activities. He thinks that it is the best possible form of integration in a new home country.
“We want our children to be educated here and we want a bright future for them.”
According to the couple, it is great that participants have the opportunity to learn more about Finnish culture and the history of the country in the activities. The families have, for example, visited the City Museum and sung Finnish folk songs together.
Boudi is currently studying at Helsinki Vocational College and Adult Institute. Hadjaj's language skills have developed at a fast pace, and he is currently looking for work.
Versatile activities, great trips
Raza Hassan Agha also praises the service. He says that Mia and her colleagues are doing a great job.
Agha moved to Finland from Pakistan with his family. His wife is studying at the University of Helsinki. Agha speaks Finnish so well that it is difficult to believe that he moved to Finland a mere six months ago.
The educated couple and their children chose Finland as their new home country because they knew that the country had been voted the happiest country in the world and has a high-quality education system.
Agha is an engineer. He is going to find work in his field as soon as the language barrier is removed.
He has attended Thursday meetings with his daughters, 8-year-old Anabia and 5-year-old Abeera.
They find the ‘Welcome Families!’ activities to be very engaging. The activities have been diverse and the excursion destinations have been aptly selected. A visit to the Fazer factory is one example of a very memorable excursion.
Activities facilitate language learning
Heinonen says that the families involved in the activities are reached through preparatory classes at schools. Teachers and staff arrange morning coffee meetings and other events for parents who have recently moved to Finland, which Heinonen, Bulham and Project Planner Emmi Okafor visit and invite the families to join ‘Welcome Families!’ activities.
In joint meetings, families have learnt more about culture and leisure, health care and youth work services, among others, thanks to visits by professionals from different sectors. Activities in libraries have been entirely new to many families, as have activities taking place at playgrounds.
The families have also, together, learnt how to use Wilma. The families have children of different ages, so information about the transition to secondary school is also needed. Employment services, Kela and HSL have also become more familiar in joint meetings, as have numerous organisations. The Nicehearts association organising activities for girls and women, for example, has gained new active members through the family activities.
The final upcoming family club will include a trip to Suomenlinna – earlier meetings have included making pancakes in the home economics classroom.
Heinonen and Bulhan have noticed that it is easier to learn Finnish when you do things together. The family project will be organising activities in three suburban regeneration areas in the coming summer, where participants learn Finnish in the morning at ‘Suomi-klubi’ clubs.
The organisers of the activities have learnt that families have become increasingly attached to their own area. Once the families are familiar with local services, they can think of more things to do and get to know more people.
Free of charge for families
Upcoming summer camps and excursions are currently being presented in a classroom at Laakavuori Primary School. A large event for the entire family will be organised at Kivikko youth centre with live music, community art and barbecuing.
According to Okafor, preparatory class teachers and guardians have provided plenty of positive feedback on the summer activities, as well. The school summer holiday is long. That is why it is especially important to organise activities to maintain and strengthen Finnish language skills.
Summer activities provide meaningful activities for the holidays for pupils and their families, whilst also improving the participants’ Finnish language skills.
At almost every meeting, there are new families asking if participation really is free. Are events for the entire family really free during the summer? And learning Finnish at the ‘Suomi-klubi’ club, too?
That’s right. And as if by magic, participants know new Finnish words and have learnt something new about Finnish society after each meeting.
Text and images: Kirsi Riipinen
