Sunday, April 02, 2017
One more Supernova, or Thank-you Amigo.
Years of wisdom pour out of her mouth. She shows me the scarf she knitted herself. She talks about how she has already overcome her drug problem. Then she shrugs it off and talks about yoga class, her fashion blog, a politics summer camp she attended. As she talks, tears start running down her cheeks. I offer her a tissue, & she stops to apologize, saying she can’t help it - sometimes they just come. She is 19 years old.
Or how about that young man? He stares past my ear & tells me how he is depressed, lonely, and marginalized. He says his last appointment at the shrink left him feeling empty. I try to ask him what music he likes, what hobbies he might have. He looks confused for a moment, briefly making eye contact for the first time since we’ve met, then proceeds to list the conditions he has been diagnosed with. He is 28.
But this isn’t a work of fiction. These aren’t one-off cases. I’ve met over a hundred young people over the last year, all of whom have their own unique story to tell. Yet almost all of them have a common thread.
All of them are stories about sadness. Stories about loneliness. Stories about being so small. Of trying so hard.
But also stories of growing, stories of empowerment, stories of encouragement & of friendship.
If there is anything this past year has taught me, it’s that youth is a magical & delirious moment. In that moment, you have time to burn bright & burn out 100 times over. You have time to stomp on other’s hearts, time to be used. And time to come out the other end an adult & never really have to be ashamed of your actions. It’s a moment so dense that each micro-moment feels like an eternity for the one living it. And once the dust settles, you are an adult, and suddenly time isn't so dense anymore.
To the young person, I’d like to say this: There are lots of people ready to condemn a young person for being young - parents, teachers, siblings, relatives, people in positions of power. And so you are lucky if you have at least one person who accepts you as you are. These are people who are there for you, despite the flaming supernova that is your youth. Because the reality is that there are adults who look the other way when you are imploding. There are adults who distance themselves for fear of the debris from the inevitable explosion.
Then there are also adults who want to help. Many of them have deep scars from their own youth. I know I sure as hell do. Then there are those who recognize how privileged they've been & feel the need to give back. I know you don’t feel brave. I know that life has drained you of courage, but please never give up, and never stop reaching out. Someone will eventually grab your hand, and be your friend as you pull yourself up so that you can keep on expanding and growing.
To the adults who’ve chosen to befriend a young person they might not have otherwise met, Thank-you.
Without you, perhaps there would be one less supernova in the night sky. We all need acceptance from someone else, especially when we are burning bright. Perhaps the young person in your life doesn’t realize what important work you are doing now, but believe me - ten years, fifteen years from now - they will look back and remember those moments.
I can say this with certainty, because I was once a youth with nobody in my life. I thought I was fine, even though my life was quickly reeling out of control. And even though I didn’t appreciate it back then, these days I am almost moved to tears when I remember these two special moments from the distant past.
The first moment was when I was 16, and my employer, Nina, told me that she was worried about me. That’s it - that’s the moment that chokes me up now. Some time after that, my life did enter a very dark phase, which makes it all the more poignant to me that she saw what a precarious position I was in.
The second ‘moment’ I remember is really a series of warm moments, when I befriended Olga, who, by choosing to be my friend, shone a light down a new path for me.
I can say with certainty, that these two women, without intending to, both saved my life.
The first moment was when I was 16, and my employer, Nina, told me that she was worried about me. That’s it - that’s the moment that chokes me up now. Some time after that, my life did enter a very dark phase, which makes it all the more poignant to me that she saw what a precarious position I was in.
The second ‘moment’ I remember is really a series of warm moments, when I befriended Olga, who, by choosing to be my friend, shone a light down a new path for me.
I can say with certainty, that these two women, without intending to, both saved my life.
So please, be patient, and know that a simple ‘how are you’ may be all that is needed. You are doing a great job simply by being there.
Thank-you, Amigo, it’s been a beautiful year.
Labels: Amigo Nuorten Mentorointihanke, Helsingin Diakonissalaitos, mentoring, volunteering, youth
fon @ 3:15 PM link to post * *
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 * *