An Immigrant Story about Ageism and Racism in Oulu

I Part

At the beginning of the year, I met Yve Shepherd online where we spoke about our life experiences of racism and ageism in Finland. We were sitting at a corner in our house on a dark, cold, and snowy winter day. We laughed, listened, and commented on our stories which have similarities and differences.

 Yve is a talkative person, has great sense of humor, helpful, and humble. She is a day-care teacher, crisis manager, and a passionate person for animals and flowers. Prior to moving to Finland, she lived in Canada and the United Kingdom. Her establishment in Finland started on short visits during Christmas, or summer vacations. Currently, she lives in Oulu with her partner and her dog. This is Yve’s story of encountering ageism and racism in Oulu.

Language course and Ageism

Yve has lived, worked, and paid her taxes over twenty years in Finland and the European Union (EU); however, not on a constant basis because of inconsistently in finding a permanent job. Yve came to Finland in her early 40s because her spouse is Finnish. She is one of the many foreigners who live in Finland because of employment, bond with a Finnish partner, studies, and so on.

Once you are established as a job- seeker in Finland at the social employment office (TE-services), you can receive benefits, which come with a list of requirements. The social employment office would help you to road-map your professional experience but never suggest having an assessment of your skills. Not always the job is related to your professional background, and they try to guide immigrants to study nursing and care homework.

Besides, this help of integration, the social employment office also has the policy that foreigners need to study Finnish language as part of the integration programme to Finnish society, which is a daily course around five or more hours, without summer break. At the beginning, alike many other immigrants, Yve was excited to learn Finnish language because she thought it would give her the opportunity to find a job, but soon she realized this was not the case and she lost interest.

It was completely immersion, and I failed because I don’t learn that way. In one year we had 13 different teachers.

Yve Shepherd

Yve thinks it’s not ideal for an individual to come to Finland to feel useless and losing their skills. Her experience with the way system of integration is designed meant a waste of life and time for her, especially that and “up in my 60s I don’t have the time studying in meanless courses”.

It was a burden to take the language course after you lost interest. She was there because it was a requirement for a job- seeker in the system, to get a daily allowance, and to continue studies.

We were treated as children, throwing paper darts at others. We became like adolescents. Meanwhile the teachers were telling us ‘go home and speak Finnish, mix with people at the gym ‘while we tried to survive on 10 euros a day!

Yve Shepherd

After continually looking for jobs, she got one and worked over a year at a daycare. While her contract was still in force, the director requested a meeting with her. She asked Yve, what was her plan for the following year. Yve was surprised because she didn’t see this coming. Unfortunately, her contract wasn’t renewed, even though her work was excellent and the daycare still needed staff.

Yve, didn’t give up. TE office sent her details to Business Oulu and they asked a coach to call her. Later Yve got a call from the coach eventually saying that she didn’t have the right to get their support as an entrepreneur from them because “she is too old”. Yve was in shock of what she heard. Her reaction was:

You know your president is up in his 70s, to what the person responded, “Oh that’s different”. Why because he is a man and Finnish?  Yve wandered with.

Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice, (how we feel), and discrimination (how we act) toward others or oneself on age.

World Health Organization

Yve didn’t get an apology from Business Oulu. She had a meeting with the manager and a staff member where she asked many questions. For example, is the staff given training in  anti-racism issues or who to talk appropriately to individuals. The answer was no, because is it’s not needed.