“Don’t say ‘No’ when oppor­tu­ni­ties come knock­ing”

Vanes­sa Phekani came to Oulu from Malawi. She hold a bach­e­lor’s degree in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and soci­ol­o­gy, and a mas­ter’s degree in edu­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

Who

My name is Vanes­sa Hele­na Phekani, I am from Malawi, where I was born and raised. I hold a bach­e­lor’s degree in pub­lic admin­is­tra­tion and soci­ol­o­gy, and a mas­ter’s degree in edu­ca­tion and glob­al­i­sa­tion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu.

I have been liv­ing in Oulu for four years now. When I first vis­it­ed here in 2017, I remem­ber think­ing: ‘Wow, this reminds me of my city back home!’ I come from a small city where you have easy access to every­thing. I love the fact that, in Oulu, I can still ride my bike to work and back.

Oulu is a very peace­ful place to live and you expe­ri­ence very lit­tle ‘hus­tle and bus­tle’ here. Life does­n’t feel rushed. I can go to work, I can rest, I can have a good work–life bal­ance here, and I real­ly appre­ci­ate that.

What

I work at the Oulun Vas­taan­ot­tokeskusten tukiy­hdis­tys ry, which in Eng­lish, is the Oulu Recep­tion Cen­tre Asso­ci­a­tion. I work under a project called Mon­i­naisil­la Poluil­la, which works with immi­grant women, help­ing them to inte­grate and build their net­works. We also plan and organ­ise activ­i­ties and events for the women to help cre­ate those net­works and friend­ships.

I love my job because you meet so many peo­ple and you learn so much. You get to under­stand dif­fer­ent cul­tures and share dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences, and for me, that is such a beau­ti­ful and life enrich­ing thing.

Where

Before com­ing to Oulu, I had been work­ing as a pro­fes­sion­al project coor­di­na­tor in Malawi, and I had been build­ing my career. I knew that I want­ed to con­tin­ue along the same path in Fin­land, so the first thing I did was to scout out the organ­i­sa­tions that I want­ed to be asso­ci­at­ed with. First, I vol­un­teered my time at Vuolle. There I was involved in a project with the youth and young girls, and I vol­un­teered as a work­er at the kids’ sum­mer camps.

I then joined the Save the Chil­dren organ­i­sa­tion. Ini­tial­ly, I vol­un­teered as a ‘peer expe­ri­ence’ edu­ca­tor, but then I was award­ed a small con­tract on the same project, and I spent a year work­ing with Save the Chil­dren.

After that, I vol­un­teered at the Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Cen­tre Vil­la Vic­tor for one month, because they work with immi­grants. I knew that I real­ly want­ed to work with immi­grants and to dis­cov­er how the city could have bet­ter pro­grammes to facil­i­tate their inte­gra­tion. From my own expe­ri­ence, I could see that there was a gap in this area. Recog­nis­ing that Vil­la Vic­tor is an inte­gral organ­i­sa­tion work­ing in that field, I felt I would be able to con­tribute to their work.

After that, I got a job with a clean­ing com­pa­ny, and this was the first time I was inter­viewed by a Finnish organ­i­sa­tion. When I start­ed the clean­ing work, it was a finan­cial neces­si­ty, but I also appre­ci­at­ed that I would be able prac­tice my Finnish. Short­ly there­after, I was accept­ed onto the mas­ter’s pro­gramme, and couldn’t take many shifts but is till main­tain my clean­ing work con­tract to date. How­ev­er”, a cou­ple of months lat­er, I found the job that I am cur­rent­ly work­ing in.

How

I think my mot­to has always been: ‘Don’t say “No” when oppor­tu­ni­ties come knock­ing’. What­ev­er they ask, say “Yes,” because it will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty for net­work­ing.

One door will open oth­er doors, and that is how I was able to mod­er­ate for the TEDx Oulu event: I was able to par­tic­i­pate in this very spe­cial event because peo­ple had seen me work­ing in dif­fer­ent spaces, as I had net­worked a lot. Some­body referred me and said: ‘I think this per­son will be of great val­ue to the TEDx pro­gramme’. It was an amaz­ing expe­ri­ence to par­tic­i­pate in the TEDx Oulu 2020.

When I first arrived in Oulu, there were many activ­i­ties where inter­na­tion­als could meet. I made my way to all of them, and even when I was exhaust­ed, I would make the time. I would go even when I did­n’t speak the lan­guage, because each expe­ri­ence would add val­ue and per­spec­tive on how I could go about job hunt­ing, or what­ev­er else it was that I need­ed to do. I would advise all immi­grants to join these events. Put your­self out there, and if you want to go ahead and organ­ise some­thing, just do it.

What

The Africa cul­tur­al day was an event a friend of mine sug­gest­ed, her name is Oju­lape Akin­wu­mi. When she told me about her idea, I knew it would be great. I was the MC for the event, which was held in Oulu. Our big head­lin­er was a band called Group Cal­abasse; they are huge here, and they made the day real­ly amaz­ing.

We also had dif­fer­ent ven­dors of African descent or peo­ple who have con­nec­tions to Africa. We had a beau­ty and fash­ion col­lec­tion; we had a lady who sup­ports an orphan­age in Africa; and there were restau­rants and indi­vid­u­als who sold African food. We also had DJs who played Afro pop music, and we had a fash­ion show. We had peo­ple shar­ing their own expe­ri­ences of Africa and how they’ve inte­grat­ed into the com­mu­ni­ty here. We also had a triv­ia quiz run­ning through­out the day: we gave peo­ple a chance to share their knowl­edge about Africa, and there were prizes to win.

On the day, when we saw how the event tran­spired, we realised just how impor­tant it was. It was huge to be able to share our cul­ture, not just for our­selves, but for our chil­dren, for the Finns who live here, and for the oth­er peo­ple who live here and who know noth­ing about our dif­fer­ent coun­tries and our cul­tures. This was the first of its kind in Oulu, and we hope it will be a recur­ring event. We hope to get sup­port from the city or from oth­er organ­i­sa­tions that work with mul­ti­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties.

I would say that I am very con­nect­ed to the African soci­ety here. We try as much as pos­si­ble to con­nect with one anoth­er, to meet up and to hold events togeth­er. It’s a group effort by a col­lec­tive in rela­tion to the city of Oulu itself. I think there’s still a lot of work to be done, and there is a lot of space for growth. I think that many mul­ti­cul­tur­al peo­ple should start to step up and say they want to cre­ate their own spaces, because there is room for this in Oulu.

I would say to any­body who moves here: Be open mind­ed. Make a plan. What do you want to do?

A good thing about Fin­land is that the sys­tem works. If you put your mind to some­thing that you real­ly want to do, the sys­tem can work for you. Be open to new expe­ri­ences and be open to change. Be will­ing to piv­ot and grow. Be will­ing to redis­cov­er your­self and rein­vent your­self: it’s nev­er too late to start again! Fin­land is a beau­ti­ful coun­try. Once you get used to the weath­er and the lan­guage, it becomes home!

This arti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished at oulutalenthub.fi

Oulu Tal­ent Hub

• Oulu Tal­ent Hub brings togeth­er and devel­ops region­al oppor­tu­ni­ties and ser­vices for inter­na­tion­al recruit­ment.
• Oulu Tal­ent Hub offers tal­ents, for exam­ple, con­tacts with local com­pa­nies, match­mak­ing events and info ses­sions, com­pa­ny vis­its, a tan­dem mod­el for intern­ship pro­grammes and career coun­selling. For Oulu Tal­ent Hub, inter­na­tion­al tal­ent is defined as inter­na­tion­al spe­cial­ists, employ­ees, researchers and stu­dents.
• Oulu Tal­ent Hub aims to pro­mote inter­na­tion­al tal­ent employ­ment to com­pa­nies in the Oulu region and open up employ­ment paths for inter­na­tion­al tal­ent.
• Project part­ners are Business­Oulu, Oulu Cham­ber of Com­merce, Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, Oulu Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences and Oulu Voca­tion­al Col­lege.
• The project is fund­ed by The Euro­pean Social Fund, ESF.
• Learn more about Oulu Tal­ent Hub at oulutalenthub.fi.

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