May­or Sep­po Määt­tä: “With Inter­na­tion­al House, Oulu will become a bet­ter city”

The open­ing cer­e­monies of Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu (IH Oulu) at Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma were held over two days, and approx­i­mate­ly 300 atten­dees par­tic­i­pat­ed.

On Tues­day, April 25, IH Oulu’s offi­cial open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was attend­ed by almost 200 guests. One hun­dred par­tic­i­pants came to the net­work­ing event on Wednes­day evening.

The open­ing cer­e­mo­ny began with a speech from Sep­po Määt­tä, the may­or of Oulu. In Määt­tä’s opin­ion, IH Oulu is an excel­lent exam­ple of the city’s mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary col­lab­o­ra­tion, and its loca­tion at Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma is very con­ve­nient.

– Gath­er­ing ser­vices under one roof makes it eas­i­er to pro­vide ser­vices, fos­ters a sense of com­mu­ni­ty, and increas­es our exper­tise in inter­na­tion­al affairs. Encoun­ters in an inter­est­ing envi­ron­ment also enhance our under­stand­ing of each oth­er and dif­fer­ent cul­tures and ori­gins. It is not an exag­ger­a­tion to say that with Inter­na­tion­al House, Oulu will become a bet­ter city by one or two degrees, Määt­tä said.

– Busi­nes­sAs­e­ma’s oth­er ser­vices add sig­nif­i­cant val­ue to the oper­a­tions of Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu. It is a won­der­ful orga­ni­za­tion that is con­stant­ly evolv­ing and has tru­ly tak­en its place as a hub for ideas, inno­va­tions, jobs and know-how.

”Towards an inter­na­tion­al city”

At the open­ing cer­e­mo­ny, in addi­tion to the may­or’s speech, sev­er­al oth­er speech­es were giv­en, and the Oulu Tem­po Advanced orches­tra also per­formed. The orches­tra is com­posed of 4th to 8th-grade stu­dents, and their reper­toire con­sists of a wide vari­ety of music.

The Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu con­cept was devel­oped by Business­Oulu and the edu­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al ser­vices of the city of Oulu.

Mika Pent­tilä, the Direc­tor of Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture for the City of Oulu, and Juha Ala-Mur­su­la, the Direc­tor of Business­Oulu, dis­cussed in their speech how the Inter­na­tion­al House was pro­posed as a joint project a few years ago.

– Juha and I have always had a clear vision and a strong will for Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu to serve as a uni­fied plat­form, bring­ing togeth­er var­i­ous ser­vices for immi­grants and those who plan to move here, men­tioned Pent­tilä.

– We are not ful­ly ready yet, but this is a sig­nif­i­cant step towards becom­ing an inter­na­tion­al city, which is pre­cise­ly what Oulu aims to be, rejoiced Ala-Mur­su­la.

”Oulu wel­comes with its whole heart”

Moustafa Khairi, an inter­na­tion­al tal­ent, shared his job search and stud­ies expe­ri­ences in Oulu.

Sal­la Hir­vo­nen, an expert from Business­Oulu, pre­sent­ed the ser­vices aimed at com­pa­nies, includ­ing IH Oulu’s goal to offer tar­get­ed ser­vices for indi­vid­ual cus­tomers, as well as to con­nect local com­pa­nies with inter­na­tion­al job seek­ers.

The ser­vice man­ag­er, Priyan­ka Sood, from the edu­ca­tion­al and cul­tur­al ser­vices of the City of Oulu, empha­sized that their pri­ma­ry goal is to make vis­i­tors feel warm­ly wel­comed by the city and to help them feel a sense of belong­ing, ulti­mate­ly mak­ing Oulu their home.

Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu, locat­ed at Busi­ness Sta­tion on Hal­li­tuskatu 36 B, is an inclu­sive space for all. The two-day open­ing cer­e­mo­ny was attend­ed by over 300 guests.

At the net­work­ing event, the new Inter­na­tion­al House Oulu ambas­sadors were intro­duced, includ­ing Sara from Iran, Pavani from Sri Lan­ka, Jun from Japan, and Eduar­do from Colom­bia. They will par­tic­i­pate in future activ­i­ties and share pos­i­tive news about Oulu with­in their net­works.

– The events dur­ing the open­ing week were high­ly suc­cess­ful, and it is evi­dent that Inter­na­tion­al House has piqued the inter­est of both cus­tomers and part­ners in Oulu. It is essen­tial to main­tain this momen­tum, states coor­di­na­tor Riku­pekka Leinonen.