Home Here and Abroad: What Made Dual Cit­i­zen Timo Stay in Fin­land?

Amer­i­can-Finnish Timo Green, who has lived in the Unit­ed States and Italy, was wait­ing for the right moment to move to his sec­ond home coun­try, Fin­land. Timo believes that in Fin­land he has found a home for the rest of his life.

Amer­i­can-Finnish Timo Green, who grew up in Ver­mont, USA, was wait­ing for the right moment to move to Fin­land. Hav­ing lived in the Unit­ed States and lat­er in Italy, Timo want­ed to get to know his sec­ond home­land, but he was wait­ing for the right moment to move to his roots.

Over the years, the sec­ond home­land had become famil­iar: vis­its to Fin­land almost every oth­er sum­mer, a Finnish grand­moth­er who lived in the Unit­ed States, and a six-month mil­i­tary ser­vice in Fin­land brought the sec­ond home­land even clos­er to Timo.

From the US through South­ern Europe to Fin­land

A four-year study of lin­guis­tics in Mon­tre­al, Cana­da paved Tim­o­’s path towards Italy and to the job of an Eng­lish teacher in 2015.

– Ital­ian cul­ture is fas­ci­nat­ing and I love the his­to­ry, food, and peo­ple. Regard­ing the work, I was able to devel­op my own teach­ing style and coop­er­a­tion skills, says Timo. How­ev­er, after liv­ing in Italy for four years, the jour­ney final­ly con­tin­ued to Fin­land in 2019.

– Liv­ing in Italy was a grow­ing expe­ri­ence in every way. In the end, teach­ing in a pri­vate lan­guage school did­n’t feel like my own thing, as nei­ther did the idea of get­ting into ele­men­tary or mid­dle school as a class­room teacher. At the same time, I longed for a change of scenery, because it was real­ly warm in Italy and the city I lived in did­n’t have the nature I was used to in Ver­mont, says Timo. The right moment had final­ly arrived.

The Coro­na pan­dem­ic hit short­ly after his move to Fin­land, but it did not pre­vent Timo’s adap­ta­tion to his new home coun­try. Timo, who applied to study at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, moved to Oulu in ear­ly autumn 2020 after get­ting a place in the Inter­cul­tur­al Teacher Edu­ca­tion pro­gram. Although the pan­dem­ic itself did not affect the adap­ta­tion, the virus had a big impact on stud­ies.

– For the first cou­ple of weeks, we were present at the uni­ver­si­ty for lec­tures. Pret­ty soon almost every­one switched to dis­tance learn­ing. It was some­what more dif­fi­cult to get into the cours­es and the mate­r­i­al due to dis­tance edu­ca­tion, and at the same time, the sud­den shift to dis­tance edu­ca­tion did reflect on the qual­i­ty of the teach­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, how­ev­er, we were able to group up at the ori­en­ta­tion, Timo iter­ates.

An Impor­tant Stu­dent Com­mu­ni­ty

Although the pan­dem­ic caused chal­lenges at the begin­ning of stud­ies, over the years, Timo’s stud­ies and the stu­dent com­mu­ni­ty have become irre­place­ably valu­able to him. Aca­d­e­m­ic orga­ni­za­tion activ­i­ties and espe­cial­ly stu­dent advo­ca­cy have tak­en Timo with him. Accord­ing to Timo, being able to improve the con­di­tions for study­ing and to improve the stu­dents’ qual­i­ty of life moti­vates him to con­tin­ue – even though it is not always easy.

– Among oth­er things, I am a stu­dent rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the board of my own degree pro­gram. Espe­cial­ly through this posi­tion of trust, I feel that I can help my fel­low stu­dents by influ­enc­ing the qual­i­ty of teach­ing, the struc­ture of the degree, and by chang­ing the bureau­cra­cy in a more favor­able direc­tion. I would also like to give a spe­cial men­tion to our teach­ers, who do a great job for the same thing, Timo opens.

In addi­tion to orga­ni­za­tion­al activ­i­ties, the degree itself has proven to be a pleas­ant choice as well. Timo, who is study­ing to become a class­room teacher, feels that through his work as a teacher, he can con­tribute to diver­si­ty and improve the func­tion­al­i­ty of the Finnish edu­ca­tion sys­tem.

– School has a great influ­ence on how we per­ceive who we are and how we func­tion in soci­ety. I feel that as a teacher, I can give back to soci­ety by being part of the growth sto­ry of soci­ety mem­bers, who are even more open to, for exam­ple, diver­si­ty and respect for the envi­ron­ment, Timo says.

Cycling, Games, and Time to Rest

Timo, who is study­ing in the mas­ter’s phase of the Inter­cul­tur­al Teacher Edu­ca­tion pro­gram, also known as ITE, is look­ing for­ward to work­ing life ahead and wish­es that after grad­u­at­ing, there would be an oppor­tu­ni­ty to stay in Oulu.

– Oulu has felt like home from the begin­ning and I’ve real­ly enjoyed my time here, says Timo.

“Oulu has felt like home from the begin­ning.”

Accord­ing to Timo, the city is per­fect­ly sized: not too big, but you can expe­ri­ence a lot of things here, from sports to art. Timo recalls about the upcom­ing Air Gui­tar World Cham­pi­onship com­pe­ti­tion, which will be held in Oulu this year, as usu­al.

Peace-lov­ing Timo appre­ci­ates the quiet­ness that Oulu offers. Hec­tic life requires time to recov­er, and Oulu meets this need per­fect­ly:

– I val­ue the fact that nature is in a state of bal­ance with the things done by mankind. In Oulu, the best aspects of the city and nature come togeth­er. My favorite place in Oulu is the Leton­nie­mi con­ser­va­tion area, a beau­ti­ful swamp for­est that ends at the sea, Timo opens.

In his spare time, besides mov­ing in nature, Timo likes bak­ing and can make all kinds of pas­tries, from cook­ies to cakes. In addi­tion to his own hob­bies, Timo enjoys spend­ing time with his friends. Like many oth­er peo­ple in Oulu, the mem­bers of Timo’s group of friends are unit­ed by a pas­sion for cycling:

– We always cycle every­where, alone, and togeth­er, all year round, laughs Timo.

More­over, to cycling, the group of friends enjoy for exam­ple play­ing dif­fer­ent board games and social games. It is also impor­tant that the cir­cle of friends shares the same val­ues. These include, for instance, the defense of human rights and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion.

Fin­land for Every­one

Of course, one can only speak for one­self, but Timo encour­ages every abroad Finn, who dreams of Fin­land, to at least vis­it the coun­try.

– I think that there is a suit­able place for every­one in Fin­land. Expa­tri­ate Finns are also in an impor­tant posi­tion in terms of diver­si­ty, as they often have per­son­al expe­ri­ence of what it’s like to come into sit­u­a­tions as an out­sider. Fin­land needs more peo­ple who are ready to pro­mote soci­ety’s more open and friend­ly atti­tude towards diver­si­ty, Timo con­cludes.

Text: Tes­sa Nikka