Mediation and education for better living
An interview with Kotilo Coordinator Terhi Joensuu, currently enjoying a year-long leave of absence.
The issues
"Ideally, the issues KOTILO deals with should be taken care of by a collaboration of Social Services, housing companies and the national Government. It shouldn’t really be in the lap of the Finnish Refugee Council, as the problems we’re dealing with are national, and need a national approach. In the eastern part of Finland, for example, there are a lot of problems which are not being addressed."
Neighborhood mediation
"When a conflict arises, housing companies contact us. Our goal is to solve a conflict through mediation before the police become involved. It’s new in Finland for all towns and cities to have a mediation office, but these only handle police cases.
After a housing company has contacted us, we assess which of our mediators would be the best person for the job, and get in touch with them. We always send mediators in pairs, one Finn and one immigrant."
Finding the mediators
"After an interview, the people who seem right for the job receive mediation training. Selection also takes place during those sessions; not everyone is suitable to be a mediator.
All our mediators are volunteers. About half of them are immigrants, the other half are Finnish. Per assignment they receive a gift of 25 Euros, but this money is usually spent on transportation, as we don’t reimburse travel costs. A volunteer is never obliged to accept an assignment; they always have the right to refuse.
Though we try to assemble as varied a group of mediators as possible, most of our Finnish volunteers are young women. The immigrant group more mixed, it’s half male, half female. We would prefer to have a completely mixed group, age-wise and gender-wise, so that we could send the most suitable person to each assignment. In some situations it might be better to have an elderly person mediate, if for instance there are seniors involved in the conflict. In other cases the boldness of a youthful mediator might come in handy, or knowledge of a certain language.
In 2005 we started out with twenty volunteers in the Metropolitan area. Now about ten to twelve of them are still active. They regularly participate in new training sessions."
Housing kit - living customs in Finland
"ASUMISPAKKI (housing kit) was developed to educate immigrants on the customs of living in Finland. One employee in Turku, two employees in Tampere, and Mervi and I do the trainings. Often, we are asked to hold them for Finnish language classes. These are the perfect audiences for our course, as they are (usually) new to Finland and eager to learn."
Project finance
"Every year we receive 200 000 Euros from RAY, and we just applied to the Ministry for Environment for 20 000 Euros, which we expect to get. Until now, funds have been granted annually after a report review. Though after the end of the pilot project last year and its (very positive) evaluation, RAY has accorded us funding for 2010 as well."
The project's future
"In the pilot project (2005-2008) we were working very closely with six housing companies in Helsinki area, Tampere, Turku and Ylöjärvi. But because news about KOTILO has spread we need to enlarge our capacities. The coming year we will expand to Oulu, and find and train a new set of volunteers for the Helsinki region."
Text: Nora Heinonen
