Thursday, September 29, 2016
Can you help? Non-Finns need not apply!
Yesterday, I had a 'Eureka!' moment. I realized I can do more to help around my community and it would also be a lot of fun for me and my kids (ok, I admit I didn't consult dd on this). In Espoo, it is possible to sign up to become a volunteer 'support person' for families with children. A support person caters to the needs of a family in need of support. Tasks can range from looking after the kids of a single mom for a few hours so she gets a bit of breathing space to helping kids with their homework to making sure the parents get bills payed on time. My own kids are very social, and always want new play mates, so I figured, what the heck, the more the merrier - if there's a family that needs some time off from their kids around here (especially immigrants who don't have family in Finland who could help out sometimes) it's no biggy for us to entertain a few kids for a few hours. We practically have a swinging door at our apartment, anyhow!
Espoo outsources their support person services to an NGO. I got in touch with them, and this was the answer:
"Unfortunately our volunteer work as a support person requires that you speak Finnish because most of the families seeking help are Finnish. Especially children in the families speak Finnish. In order to communicate with them you should be able to speak Finnish. ... If you are able to speak Finnish you are most warmly welcome to participate."
I remember, when I worked as an interpreter, these services were sometimes offered to Thai women. Their first question was usually, 'Does the person speak Thai?', to which the social worker would answer, 'Unfortunately not - they speak Finnish.' I had the same experience in Saimit. Many Thai women asked if we had Thai mentors for them. The experience is repeating itself in Amigo right now. Some immigrant youths are asking whether we have someone they can talk to in their own language, or at least not Finnish all the time.
So, where is the gap? There is a need for services in one's own language, and there is a will to help in languages other than Finnish. But there is also some kind of idea that not speaking Finnish is automatically a problem.
The formula for eligibility for both social workers and for this particular NGO appears to be something like this:
X + Y = 'Action'
where
X = Desire to contribute
AND
Y = Need for support
If foreign language is thrown into the mix, it is a 'zero multiplier'
No Finnish * (X+Y) = 0 * Action
As far as I can tell, this creates a situations where A) human resources are wasted, and more importantly B) People who are genuinely in need of support would rather do without it, as it can be cumbersome to discuss sensitive personal matters while struggling to express them in a weak second language.
Of course, I do understand that it is important to learn a second language when integrating into a new country. But let's not mix up two separate needs here: One is the need to solve social or psychological problems (lack of access to services, lack of time, unresolved traumas), and the other is the need to learn a language in order to integrate into a new country. Learning the language will help you access services, but it won't help you resolve the other problems. And the question remains - should you only be allowed to access social services after you've learned the language, and not before?
As early as the 70s, psycholinguistic research (Marcos, 1976) found that while it may be easier to talk about your problems in a foreign language (without having a meltdown) it is much more difficult to address the roots of the problem in one's own language. Nothing has changed.
One NGO in particular, Nicehearts, with their 'Naapuriäiti' model, does an excellent job using research in the field of integration in their decision making process. The question is, why doesn't the state?
Another factor to consider is the group of foreigners who come to Finland on a work visa. In general, businesses take very good care of them. And they do not need to learn Finnish. So the consensus is that foreigners with a paycheck will be served in a manner and language convenient for them. Foreigners without a guaranteed paycheck upon arrival shall be given whatever treatment is convenient for the service providers. This kind of discrimination would be fine in a country that doesn't promise equal access to services for all people. But this is Finland - a social democracy that explicitly promises equality of access. I live in Espoo, so I took a peek at the Espoo City website.
The city of Espoo has a Equality Committee, and their page explicitly states:
"The Act on Equality between Women and Men and the Non-Discrimination Act oblige all officials of Espoo to promote equality and non-discrimination in all of their activities."
Nowhere does it say: "But only in Finnish".
But that seems to be the general attitude. I find it deeply disparaging that the current social model only seeks to include foreigners if a) they have a paycheck or b) if they want to speak Finnish, both on the volunteer and the support side.
At my work place (Helsingin Diakonissalaitos), we run a volunteer programme where the philosophy is that anyone with the will to participate in civic activities should be included and empowered. The need to help is as real and urgent as the need for help, and perhaps I am speaking for myself, but we tend to think that both factors are equally important should be in balance. Maybe that's why we are officially called the Community Programmes, as opposed to Volunteer Programmes.
Our formula looks something like this: X + Y = Z or 'Urgency of action.'
Where:
X = Strength of desire to contribute
Y = Urgency of need for support
where X and Y are roughly equal
The action taken is a sum of the urgency of action + the result of variables A, B, C. So the result should be something like this:
Z + (A*B*C) = Action taken.
'Language of operation' is one of those variables, and not the 'zero multiplier' that makes the equation an impossibility.
Having those 'zero multipliers' that create hurdles in access to services is a big problem in a service model that promises equitable access. Having those 'zero multipliers' means that services are inaccessible to certain groups. It does not mean that those groups do not exist. City of Espoo: Your failure to reach out to these groups is in direct violation of the Non-Discrimination Act.
My vote is going to the party that addresses these issues!
Just sayin'.
Join the discussion on Facebook!
Labels: city council, discrimination, equal access, espoon kaupunki, language, vaalit, volunteering
fon @ 3:07 PM link to post * *
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
About racial profiling.
The first graders' first parents evening is hardly the place where I expected to feel my blood pressure rise. And especially not due to racial profiling, given that my child is going to an international school.
The homeroom teacher said to mention if anything is not quite right. I suppose she meant in the kids' lives, but I wrote her a note nonetheless. I wouldn't want the teacher to remain so silent in front of the children if something like this were to occur again on her watch (I suppose this was the afternoon club when this happened, so she's off the hook for that - although I do wish she'd said something to the angry dad.)
I didn't say anything in the meeting this evening. I am angry at myself for being too bewildered to open my mouth. If he speaks like that again, though, I certainly won't remain quiet. What I would have liked to have done is ask the father who brought up the matter of the 'Chinese gentleman' whether he would have found the ethnicity worth pointing out had the photographer looked white.
So what happened? Well, he reported that his child had reported a Chinese gentleman outside taking pictures of the blond ladies. And that there were drones. Fine, reporting what his daughter said is objective enough, although naturally, the kid hasn't learned all by herself to draw ethnic lines or call some vaguely Asian looking guy Chinese. He continued, however, to talk about 'the Chinese man', and that's where he crossed over to the realm of racial profiling and my blood pressure shot to the ceiling. He went on to say stuff like 'these kinds of visitors cannot be allowed at school.' 'There must be absolute control.' He also went on to suggest that all devices must be confiscated from all visitors. Adult visitors.
First of all, I wonder what trauma he's experienced to think that somehow outsiders cannot be trusted at all. For the sake of experimentation, I should send the most 'Chinese looking' friend of mine to get Monn from school one day and tell him to take a picture of Monn so that everyone sees it happening. My kid may not be a lady, but he is blond. And he is Thai. I am sure there are some adopted kids in the school who would 'look Chinese' (whatever that means in today's non-homogenous world!) but are Finnish, or American, or Italian, etc. from head to toe.
I might have totally agreed with him about control of privacy had he not pointed out the perceived ethnicity. After all, now we are specifically talking about Chinese visitors. Not just men with cameras in general. And only about photographing blond ladies, now.
I do respect his need for privacy, even though I don't understand why he needed to shout at all of us about it. I definitely don't think the school needs to operate like some high-security prison though. Surely, we can trust adult educators from around the world not to take photos and post them on social media if we tell them it's not allowed. My gut feeling is that had they been Finnish-looking visitors he would not have been so up in arms about it. But that's just my opinion.
I do hope to see some improvement from the school on this front. Racial profiling is hurtful and discriminatory, and it's something that many so-called 'kantasuomalaiset' ('ethnic Finns') fail to see, no matter how 'non-racist' they claim to be. Not only Finns, of course. I was once called into the principal's office at an international school in Kazakhstan. A kid who had been home-schooled til the age of ten and was exposed to the real world for the first time came up to me (age 12) and shouted 'Hahaaaa! You're CHINESE and I'm AMERICAN!' etc. Then he taunted my best friend, 'YOU'RE AN INDIAN!!'. ... Then I punched him. The principal told me 'What he said wasn't nice, but hitting is absolutely not allowed.' I agree, hitting isn't allowed. BUT NEITHER IS RACISM!!!! It's not just 'not nice'. It is simply wrong.
It's simply not enough just to say that you don't think less of someone because of their appearance. It's also important to revise one's own language to reflect that attitude. If you are constantly mentioning negative actions with an ethnicity attached to it, you are in fact re-enforcing negative stereotypes about ethnic groups, even without directly saying negative things about that particular group. So, seriously. If the dudes skin colour, appearance or gender for that matter, had ABSOLUTELY ZILCH to do with the actions that you disapprove of, don't keep bringing them up. You make yourself look like the ultimate stereotype of the 'privileged white man'.
Here is a good blog on the topic from a victim of ethnic profiling in Finland:
https://raster.fi/2016/06/21/the-reality-of-ethnic-and-racial-profiling-in-finland/
And here is the EU's report on the matter, in case you are saying 'Oh, there's that member of a minority who wants to whine about imagined racism': https://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/ecri/Country-by-country/Finland/FIN-CbC-IV-2013-019-ENG.pdf
'nuff said. I need a drink - Oh wait, Thai ladies don't drink. We totally just sit around and let our white hubbies beat us into submission.
Labels: bullying, discrimination, nationalism, racial profiling, racism, xenophobia
fon @ 1:48 AM link to post * *
Friday, April 29, 2016
There is no such thing as a 'non-existent' child. At least, there shouldn't be.
I was also born in outer space. I have an 'Alien's passport' to prove it. Finland didn't care for me, as my parents were not married. Thailand also didn't grant me citizenship because my father was not Thai. Legally speaking, I was nobody's problem. This was almost 33 years ago.
These days, Finland does not require parents to be married in order to prove that a child is a 'legal' citizen, just as Thailand no longer fears a huge influx of regional male migrants trying to gain entry into the country by fathering Thai babies. Both countries eventually saw fit to give me citizenship.
But you can still get one of these in Finland:
Despite all this, my existence was still logged somewhere, albeit in outer space. But there are kids, here in the EU, who 'do not exist' anywhere. On any paper. Not even as an alien.
Many Romanian children are not given legal identity at birth in Romania. And because they do not exist, it is impossible for them to go to school, to the doctor, or get any kind of social security. The Helsinki Deaconess Institute (where I work), works with Romanian families in Valea Seaca. This year, the main goal is to secure identities for Romanians who lack documentation. 25€ buys a child an identity. 50€ will give bring their mother into legal existence. By giving the gift of identity, you make it possible for these families and children to live a better life in their own home country.
It isn't every day I share a campaign on social media, but the idea of home and identity - and of existence - are close to my heart. From my point of view, it is both draconian and archaic that a living and breathing child simply 'does not exist'. Give the gift of identity.
Lahjoita henkilöllisyys! Olemassa-kampanja tukee HDL:n kummikylää Romaniassa.
Labels: discrimination, home, kummikylä, nationalism, olemassa, rasicm
fon @ 1:32 PM link to post * *
Saturday, April 18, 2015
Election results & fear of the dark
My Finnish passport was my first. But I've never felt like a Finn, because every time we visited the country growing up, I was reminded about being a foreigner. As a matter of fact, that Finnish passport I had back then explicitly stated 'Alien passport'.
So my reader will hopefully understand me when I say that 'foreigner' is very deeply a part of the 'Finnish' part of my identity.
To the point: last night's election result scares me, as it probably scares many others who are not mainstream & 'average' Finns. Remember those monsters hiding under the bed when you were a child? I get a similar feeling of unease from the Finnish parliament.
From time to time, we spent a month or two in Finland as I was growing up. One of these times, I attended a Finnish public school. Now I can't help wondering whether one of my classmates who pushed me off my bike and taunted me with calls of 'Vietnamese refugee' is amongst those in parliament.
I can't help but wonder whether someone like that boy who told me he was better than me because I am Chinese voted to get 'my kind' out of the country.
I wonder if the people in that team I worked with, who kept telling me my input on the draft of our text was not needed because I am not a native speaker, are walking around my neighbourhood, relieved by the election results.
I wonder if that 30-something man who said to me as a 16-year-old girl "you Thai ladies know all about this kind of thing" as he grabbed me and kissed me is now making decisions about my life.
I can't help but wonder how many of the people I pass on the street hate me, because I am different. Because I am Chinese, Vietnamese, don't speak Finnish as well, and am a Thai slut here to steal their men and now, their jobs.
Yes, I am scared. Those monsters in the dark didn't disappear. They moved on to scarier tasks.
Labels: discrimination, elections, Finland, nationalism, parliament, rasicm
fon @ 4:45 PM link to post * *