‘Many doors can open up’

Most of the tables in the assembly hall of Yrjänä Parish Hall are unoccupied.The venue on the outskirts of Turku city centre is supposed to bring together asylum seekers from the region’s reception centres to soak up information about the Finnish world of work.Maybe it’s the warm summer weather that has made folks wait for the next one, but only three men have turned up today and not one of them now livesat a reception centre.

Berhan Ahmadi, chef and active PAM member, moved to Finland from Southern Kurdistan in Iraq when he was a 9-year-old refugee.He has given a lecture about a dozen times to hundreds of asylum seekers in all.The audience this Monday night – Omar Ibrahim, Montaser Jaddoa and Omar Basil – are room-mates in a one-bedroom rented flat.They are all from Iraq and highly educated: a lawyer, an economist and a social scientist.They arrived in Finland separately in July and August last year. Basil has just received a residence permit,while the others are still waiting for a decision.

Their fourth room-mate, Bahaulddin Rawi, who used to work as a university teacher and journalist in Iraq, has arrived to provide interpreting assistance.He also arrived in Finland as an asylum seeker in early autumn last year and has spent plenty of time doing voluntary work, such as interpreting.

‘We’d like to hear about the Finnish world of work, because we want to build our lives here and that requires a job,’ says Jaddoa, summarising the group’s hopes.

Berhan Ahmadi starts his PowerPoint presentation at the front of the concrete hall, saying that he will only speak in Finnish because he wants to stress the importance of learning the language when seeking employment.He can speak English and some Arabic, although his native language is Kurdish. Ahmadi introduces himself briefly and then gets down to business: full-time employment generally means 7.5 working hours per day; the law and collective agreements guarantee rights such as taking lunch breaks; you have the right to organise; discrimination is prohibited by law.The three friends are nodding quietly at their table.

Ahmadi returns to language skills.He explains that almost all workplaces require you to know either Finnish or Swedish, so it pays to focus on your studies.In addition, it’s good to understand the culture of your new country of residence.

‘If you focus on learning Finnish, many doors can open up for you,’ he says.

Laughing, the audience frets over the requirement, joking about how difficult the Finnish language is.

‘Are you required to know Finnish to get married, too?’ Rawi chimes in.

Ahmadi moves on to the next topic on his slides, which he considers especially important: undeclared work.‘What do you think it means?’ he asks his audience.

‘If you work without a work permit,’ answers Basil.

Ahmadi adds that it is important to sign a written employment contract,so as not to be taken for a ride.Moreover, if an asylum seeker gets caught doing undeclared work, it is fairly certain that they will not be granted a residence permit.

‘So please advise those you know not to start doing black market work,’ Ahmadi says.

Soon the slideshow is over – more quickly than usual, as the group is small and already aware of employment issues.The audience stays on to ask Ahmadi about opening a bank account and whether it would be legal to pay wages into someone else’s account if you can't open your own account.

After the lecture, the men reckon that the world of work in Finland is very different from the situation in Iraq.

‘In Iraq, taxation doesn’t work and working hours are not restricted in private enterprises,’ Rawi says, telling stories about his past jobs.

The men know that it is not easy to find a job at present.If it happened, what would they like to do in Finland?

‘I'd rather do something related to law, but I've also worked in tourism and would be really happy to do that type of work here too,’ says Ibrahim.

‘I used to work for a delivery company, so I could also do that here, since the work is familiar,’ says Basil.

‘The Finnish language is hard, but we’ll try when we start our studies in August,’ he adds.

Representatives of the Turku and Kaarina Parish Union and Berhan Ahmadi met in March when the City of Turku rewarded them both, Ahmadi as the year’s New Citizen of Turku and the Parish Union for Multicultural Act 2016.The Parish Union had made one of its camp centres available for use as an emergency accommodation centre for asylum seekers, which was jointly operated with the Finnish Red Cross.Ahmadi suggested co-operation and soon kicked off his lectures on the world of work.The Church also aims to support integration of asylum seekers in other respects and to arrange interaction between them and local residents, explains University Chaplain Laura Kajala, who was involved in organising co-operation.

‘The Church is doing really good work in Turku,’ praises Ahmadi.

‘The Church is perhaps not supposed to do everything, but our networks include plenty of people who can provide support for and work with asylum seekers,’ Kajala says.

Ahmadi’s lecture has changed a lot along the way.The composition of his audience on each occasion may also change the content: last week, there were a couple of dozen young people who were still minors and Ahmadi threw his PowerPoint presentation aside and started talking about studying.They did still talk a lot about language skills that time as well.A teenager coming from the Middle East, for example, may be at a different stage in life compared with their Finnish peers, which is something that Ahmadi knows from personal experience.

‘I started my career in Iraq at the age of six selling knick-knacks at volleyball matches,’ he reminisces.

‘The threshold to go to school is higher if you have already been working for ten years.