04/2017 JOENSUU: Visiting city’s dormitory for immigrants
We went to visit our city’s dormitory for immigrants. In Finnish it’s called a family home. In this specific department lives 16-17 year-old teenagers, who already have a permit of residence. So they are legal citizens and they have all the same rights as Finnish people. The youngsters go to school every day, make their own food and are taught Finnish in schools. They get money each month to buy all the necessary products they need, for example they need to cook their own food. The immigrants live in this dormitory until they are 18 but after that they need to move to an apartment. In the dormitory there are workers that work with the immigrants and help them with whatever they need help with. One of them speaks Finnish and Arabic so they can communicate with their own language too. They have nice looking and clean social rooms and kitchen that they share together. The rooms and the whole department has just ben renovated so all in all it looked really comfortable. They really have made it look like a home and I believe that’s been the goal when they have built the department.
Siiri, Ville ja Rosita
Erasmus blog 