Finland
participants
We aimed to give our participants more information about the situation with refugees in Finland. Also to do something nice together and create bonds between our students and the people of the refugee center. We also wanted to promote volunteering in general.
We wanted to have fun and do something meaningful as well. We went to visit a refugee center on the International Day of Volunteering. ESN FINT in cooperation with an organization called Finnish Refugee Council (Pakolaisapu) had an event at the Tampere Reception Center. As the Finnish independence day was the next day we got into the right mood by tasting Finnish foods and doing Finland themed arts and crafts. Our main activity was making and decorating gingerbread. To entertain the children of the center we will also had face paints and fun games.
The event went really well and in the feedback form a lot of people said the event was successful. Participants felt like they were inspired to do volunteering more in the future and they were wishing for more events that are similar to this one. Unfortunately the organization we cooperated with cancelled on the last minute so we lacked the educative side of the event. Participants would have wanted to hear more about the statistics and facts considering refugees in Finland. In the end however the people who live at the refugee center seemed really happy about our visit and our participants felt great after doing something meaningful.
