On May 14th, Supercell hosted an event called “Finding Your Place in Finland”. It was organised by Melanie Dower, who is the person in Supercell who helps new expatriate employees settle into life in Finland. She brought together a number of useful, English language services to speak about what they offer. We were very happy to be among their invited speakers.
Here is an annotated list of the presenters and links to their services:
  • International House – Elina Nurmi
    This is a one stop shop in Sörnäinen for people moving to Finland to sort out visas, tax, personal identity numbers, etc… They can meet with representatives from KELA, Migri and others to talk about what they need to settle into life in Finland and work here https://www.ihhelsinki.fi/
  • Metropolia – Marianne Autero – This is an amazing service that offers free advice for highly educated immigrants to convert their qualifications in Finland and find work. They offer free multiple one on one meetings to immigrants in their Myllypuro office to help migrants with both study and career pathways.
    https://www.metropolia.fi/en/about-us/simhe/
  • Luckan Integration – Solveig Österlund, Valter Holmström, Tony Khalil & Ann-Jolin Grüne – Luckan offers free integration services to migrants on a number of issues (work, study, recreation, mentorship program with a Finnish person to settle into life in Finland or a mentorship program to match a professional person with a migrant (The Door)) and are located in the city next to Forum shopping centre. https://integration.luckan.fi/
  • Oodi – Riikka Leskinen – We learnt about all the features of Oodi library, including being able to rent a sewing machine, renting meeting rooms (small and large) at no cost, using computers, books, video game players, a music recording studio, etc… https://www.helmet.fi/en-US/Libraries_and_services/Library_Oodi
  • Compass Psychology – Annabel Battersby & Jane Tuomola – We talked about our New Mothers’ Group program for English speaking women with newborn babies in Helsinki and the men’s group, Fitting Into Finland. https://compasspsychology.fi/new-mothers-group-helsinki/
  • The Shortcut – Anne Badan, Hanna Smorodinzeff & Beto- A very interesting service/organisation which helps English-speakers in Helsinki who are interested in careers in coding and IT start ups to meet each other, get free training, network and socialise (full calendar of events like trivia nights, game nights, etc…) https://theshortcut.org/ (See photo below of their presentation)
  • NewCo – Valdar Liive- Free service for entrepreneurs in Helsinki, highly recommend them. https://newcohelsinki.fi/en/