12/03/2020
Finland
participants
Bringing international students and locals together, making long-lasting friendships and learning new languages and cultures & cultural differences.
Locals and international degree and exchange students signed up for Friend Programme. We matched the friends based on their interests. There were local students, pairs and families involved and some of them have been a part of the programme for a long time as we do this every semester. Mostly the pairs were one international student and one local student/pair/family but some locals wanted to have more than just one friend.
We organised the first meeting where they got to know each other and we told what was expected from the participants. During the spring the friends met up based on their own schedule and did things they enjoyed: cottage weekends, sauna nights, cooking together, having dinners, doing sports, every day life etc. Just what the normal friends would do. The participants learnt new cultures and languages and got to know new people. This programme helped the international students to integrate in Finnish culture and community. At the end of the semester we planned to have a get-together and go ice-fishing but had to cabcel this due to Covid-19.
Locals and international students got to know new people and make new friends. They shared their cultures, cultural differences and languages. International students learnt more about Finland and locals learnt about other countries. We had to stop the activity due to Covid-19 and we didn't have for example a chance to go ice fishing with all the participants. However, we encouraged the participants to stay in touch with each others respecting social distance and using for example online platforms.