Mohammed Hasnat looks at how the small immigrant community in Lapland´s capital get together.
I’ve been living in Rovaniemi for the last eight years. But some time I feel boring and isolated due to want of any forum of expatriates,” Russian Ota Bek remarks.
The absence of a close association supplements the difficulties when they think of passing leisure times in a place, faraway from their native cultures.
“It’s very much essential to be unite under a common umbrella but unfortunately such move was not taken so far here by anyone,” says another Russian Anna Stammer, adding that she passed her spare time by just doing more work. She, however, did not consider herself as the right person to take the initiative and form an association for foreigners.
Sebastien, a French researcher of Arctic Centre, also wants some kind of ‘association’ but is ‘reluctant’ to do this on his own.
Many other expatriates felt that launching an association would help them. But they avoided the responsibility with various excuses like business, want of opportunity.
According to the Rovaniemi Registry Office, a total of 1,140 foreigners, most of them from Russia, Sweden, Afghanistan, Burma and China are living in the city.
“The official report of the Registry Office does not provide figures for the foreign national groups numbering below 20,” Registry Office official Paula Tervo said.
Out of the expatriates, the situation of the refugees, who are being settling down by government initiatives, is comparatively better as they are rehabilitated here in a group and exchange views within the community in addition to having the right to state benefits.
“We visit residences of our native people on some occasions like religious festival Eid,” said Afghan national Nasar Hossain.
The expats from big communities like Russia (168), Sweden (123), Myanmar (104), Afghanistan (98 ) and China (54) maintain such communication in their own community during their free time and during national religious or cultural festivals.
They observed their national days, New Year according to their own calendar and religious festival such as Buddha Purnima, Eid and Puja.
Some people of Muslim community gather in a small room on Friday at Kostikatu area while the people of Christian community visit the city’s main church along with the natives and sometimes visit an Evangelical Free Church where the authority arranges a translation facility.
“We offer the visitors, including foreigners, an opportunity to meet with fellow Christians as well as the Lord Jesus Himself. We translate the meeting into English and Russian languages, if the expatriates come here,” Dr Pekka Valmari, a Finnish physician who runs the Evangelical Free Church said, adding that about six to eight expatriates gathered in his church every Sunday.
Although there is an Irish bar named ‘Irish Times’ in the city centre area (operated by a Finnish national, Harri Kairala) it is similar to the other bars and it is almost exclusively used by Finns.Not knowing enough Finnish is also problem for foreigners in Rovaniemi.
“I face various problems here as I am yet to learn Finnish language to survive myself properly,” Marcin Affelski, a Pole, told me.
A Bangladeshi student, Matiur Rahman Khan, said that he failed to secure a cleaning job only because he did not understand Finnish well. He vented his anger saying that “it was still not clear why Finnish language skill is required for this kind of job.”
The officials of the job recruiting companies also admitted language was the reason.
“We just collect workers for our clients as per their liking. But in most cases, the clients prefer Finnish-speaking people,” said Marjut Heikkuri, an official of the recruiting agency, Extraaja, in Rovaniemi.
“They want an employee with better communication skills, mainly on language,” she said adding that most of her clients could not speak in English.
Some foreign nationals, however, gather at the language centre, Rovala, to learn Finnish language.
People from Russia, Myanmar, Sweden, Afghanistan, Britain, Netherlands, France, Hungary and India gather at the Rovala to learn Finnish language, culture, society and computer education.
“Presently we have 80 foreign students in our Finnish language course,” Jaana Tarsa, the principal of the Rovala told me, adding that the expatriates also share their views with the local students in Rovala.
“Most of the students are either refugees, or who got married to Finnish people while few professionals, students and housewives also attend the courses.”
Comments (3)
1. 21-02-2009 16:39
2. 23-02-2009 12:58
3. 13-04-2009 10:45
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