“Here I have every­thing that makes me hap­py” – Monika’s jour­ney from Poland to the peace of Oulu

Moni­ka Cwiek moved to Fin­land in 2020. From Oulu, Moni­ka has found a home where every­thing just fell into a right place. But who Moni­ka is and what are the rea­sons behind enjoy­ing life in Oulu?

In 2020 when Moni­ka Cwiek packed her bags and left Poland behind, the rea­son for emi­gra­tion was not the usu­al such as hav­ing a part­ner in Fin­land, mov­ing because of a job, start­ing stud­ies or like Moni­ka said her­self:

– I do not have a rich uncle from whom I inher­it­ed prop­er­ty on Finnish land.

Life sit­u­a­tion in Poland did not feel right and it was time for a change of scenery. After liv­ing year in Helsin­ki, fur­ni­ture van did move on to the streets of Oulu.

– For me, liv­ing in Oulu just makes sense. On the oth­er hand, it does­n’t make sense for me to trav­el out­side this city, because here I have every­thing that makes me hap­py, Moni­ka reveals.

Cur­rent­ly Moni­ka is work­ing in the HR field as an HR spe­cial­ist in the con­struc­tion indus­try. Her work­ing days con­sist of recruit­ing and hir­ing inter­na­tion­al employ­ees. Moni­ka thinks work­ing in Fin­land real­ly dif­fers from work­ing in Poland.

– Here I had to learn a lot, such as how to take breaks and not work dur­ing them and how to wear slip­pers or woolen socks in the office instead of shoes, she opens.

A switch from a work­ing sec­tor to anoth­er

Finnish work­ing cul­ture is tru­ly some­thing Moni­ka appre­ci­ates, even though learn­ing about work­ing-life bal­ance is still in process.
Before work­ing as a HR spe­cial­ist, in Poland Moni­ka did work in events indus­try and in the music field.

Moni­ka con­sid­ers work expe­ri­ence she gath­ered from Poland as extreme­ly valu­able since it has equipped her with a whole range of great skills. The turn towards HR field occurred only in Fin­land. Accord­ing to Moni­ka, indus­try turn­around was rather unex­pect­ed, sur­pris­ing, and quite dif­fi­cult.

– I had to learn a lot from scratch, at the same time my edu­ca­tion and pre­vi­ous expe­ri­ence helped me a lot to adapt to the new sit­u­a­tion quick­ly. The HR indus­try inter­ests me very much, I am devel­op­ing here not only pro­fes­sion­al­ly but also per­son­al­ly, Moni­ka dis­clos­es.

Orig­i­nal­ly Moni­ka has grad­u­at­ed with a master’s degree in for­eign trade and world econ­o­my. Here in Fin­land, she has stud­ied par­tic­u­lar­ly Finnish lan­guage. Pass­ing the YKI-test two years ago in inter­me­di­ate lev­el did not sat­is­fy Moni­ka and now she is work­ing for the advanced lev­el of the same test.

– In my opin­ion, if you want to get to someone’s head, talk to them the lan­guage they know, but if you want to get to the heart, then speak their moth­er lan­guage, nar­rates Moni­ka.

Lover of books and vol­un­teer­ing

Grow­ing up in a crowd­ed and con­gest­ed War­saw, peace­ful Oulu offers place to calm down and relax. As the best thing in Oulu Moni­ka names nature. In her free time, she enjoys observ­ing the ver­sa­tile nature Oulu offers: diverse bod­ies of water, ani­mals, plants and trees – the list could go on for­ev­er.

– Here I have a for­est next to my block of flats, a lake I pass on my dai­ly walk to work, and in the after­noon, I can pop into a sea­side beach café to grab a cup of cof­fee, she explains.

The diver­si­ty of nature can be seen even in every­day life.

Even though nature in Fin­land blooms espe­cial­ly in the sum­mer, the win­ter Oulu has stolen Monika’s heart. Espe­cial­ly Oulu’s prac­ti­cal­i­ty dur­ing win­ter receive praise from Moni­ka. She thinks the infra­struc­ture is great, even in the cold­est snows and frosts.

– If it snowed in War­saw the way it snows every day in Oulu, the city would be par­a­lyzed. And with that kind of cold, res­i­dents, espe­cial­ly chil­dren, would be banned from leav­ing their homes, Moni­ka uncov­ers.

“A lit­tle activ­i­ty is bet­ter than no activ­i­ty at all.”

Besides lov­ing the nature of Oulu, books have a spe­cial place in Monika’s heart. Cur­rent­ly the prob­lem is hav­ing more ‘need-to-read’ books in her ‘need-to-read’ list than actu­al time to spend with those books. Much of the time Moni­ka spends by vol­un­teer­ing in dif­fer­ent projects, espe­cial­ly in those sup­port­ing Monika’s life val­ues, human rights and edu­ca­tion.

– After all, we can­not fix the prob­lems of the whole world, but we can at least make a tiny con­tri­bu­tion to improv­ing it. A lit­tle activ­i­ty is bet­ter than no activ­i­ty at all, she describes.

Vol­un­teer­ing in events such as Oulu Pride 2023, TEDx­Oulu 2024 and North­ern Speech Wiz­ard Toast­mas­ters Club has giv­en things one can­not get else­where. Spe­cial­ly Moni­ka men­tions con­nec­tions form­ing through­out vol­un­teer­ing and life skills that vol­un­teer­ing teach­es. Accord­ing to Moni­ka, for exam­ple in the North­ern Speech Wiz­ard Toast­mas­ters Club one can improve their pub­lic speak­ing, lead­er­ship, and com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills.

All in all, even though jump to the unknown may sound scary, some­times risks are worth tak­ing. The unknown can give you place hold­ing every­thing that makes you hap­py.

You can find Moni­ka on LinkedIn, too.

Main pic­ture: Sofia Hus­so
Text: Tes­sa Nikka