Day 3: Visit to Fiskars; and Day 4: School Visits

On Sunday, we took a drive to Fiskars, the home of the famous scissors. The village has been rejuvenated into a tourist magnet since the iron industry left . Some photos of Fiskars not already uploaded are posted below:


A pretty picture of a waterfall

 

There's always a place for kids to work off their energy

Back in Helsinki that evening, I left the students with Kate for dinner while I met up with some members of the various minority and refugee communities at the Dakwah Multicultural Center in a northern suburb outside the city. I had earlier contacted them to arrange for my visit and they obliged by giving up their Sunday to meet me. I managed to involve myself in very fruitful and informative two-hour dialogue on the various challenges and experiences of this group as they struggle with their present situation and prepare for their future lives in Finland.

DAY 4: School Visits:
On Monday, we took a tour of Vantaa Vocational College just outside of Helsinki. Like elsewhere in the world, vocational training carries the stigma of being less prestigous than the upper scondary track, where students would likely enter university in Finland. Nevertheless, the country has invested a lot of money to keep their students from falling off the radar and into some form of technical training. According to many Finlanders I have personally met however, they now favor the vocational track for their kids since there is  a surplus of overqualified graduates in the country. With free healthcare and generous social benefits, a secure technical and service-based job would only make sense since this sector has increasingly grown in demand.

Presenting Ms Veera Lanttola of the Vantaa Vocational School with a La Roche souvenir after taking us around for a tour.

Our group poses for a photo in one of the vocational classrooms.

 After this visit, we went on a tour of the Sotunki Secondary School, also in Vantaa. We had a nice lunch at the cafeteria, visited their sports activities, library, maths and home economics classes, as well as a couple of English classes. We also had interesting conversations with students in the school on topics ranging from culture to politics to sports. Here is a photo of me and Rebecca with a couple of 16-year olds, who earnestly presented us with information on the country's social security system.