thisisFINLAND Foreign Correspondents' Programme
Experiencing Finland through the young journalist's eyes
A weekend in the capital of Finland, Helsinki, is a synonym of experimentation. The wide variety of activities that the city has to offer let you play with the different facets of your personality. And during the summer, one activity stands out: the Flow Festival.
Helsinki sharpens all your senses. The capital of Finland has the capacity to widen your pupils, make your inhalations deeper and your ...
In my years of hearing “Nordic design” frequently thrown around outside of Nordic countries, often in fields like product design and interior decor, the term refers to the kind of simplicity in forms, with an emphasis on function and quality materials.
That is not that far off based on what I heard and saw in Finland. Tuija Aalto-Setälä, Brand Manager of Fiskars Corporation, Finland’s largest ...
Jamaican-born black nationalist, Marcus Garvey, puts it this way, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
The fresh breeze from the long trees, the wooden and colourful houses made me feel like I was in touch with the history, the past, origin and the culture of the Wooden-city of Porvoo, Finland, as I walked through the streets ...
Let’s suppose that you can turn the time back to the year you came out into this world and you can choose a city where you would be born. Which country comes to your mind?
If someone asks me this question, I will definitely answer “Helsinki” just in a second. The reason is simple: I believe that only the happy parents can raise their kids happy.
In most countries, including my home ...
Having an interest in a country and following a country’s progress from a remote location is one thing, but getting the chance to explore it from the ground is an experience that opens one to possibilities that one would have never imagined.
My first few days in Finland have essentially been of this nature. That Finland topped the list of the world’s happiest country is something that most of ...
The beautiful sunrise seen from the plane, a sort of small town atmosphere at the airport, the tall trees on the way to Töölö Towers, the nice view from the hotel corridor… And silence.
The silence was probably the most distinctive feature that caught my attention in Helsinki during my first 36 hours in the city. At first, it didn’t seem that extraordinary for it to be so quiet. I had ...
Finland seems a lot like the salty black licorice it’s known for. A sweet candy at an initial glance. More complex and extreme once you look closely.
On one hand, Finland is known for its robust social welfare programs. On the other, it has a history of struggling to combat long-term homelessness. There’s the world’s top education system by certain measures, but also a history of ...
For the past 5 years, I’ve visited around a dozen countries as a foreign news reporter for a TV station in Thailand. Most of them are in Asia and close to my home country such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia; the others are USA and Russia. So Finland, where I will be traveling to in the next few days, will be the destination of my first trip to Europe.
I used to apply for some ...
I will never forget the day I got an email that said I was one of the five people who were shortlisted for this program. I honestly felt like I was one step away from packing to my first oversea trip at 27. However, the day I got the email with these words: “I’m happy to let you know that we chose you to participate in the Foreign Correspondents’ Program (FCP) in ...
Curiosity is at the heart of journalistic endeavour — it is the desire to know why things work a certain way and how that might impact people’s lives and the decisions they make, and Finland has intrigued me particularly ever since my grad school days at Columbia University in New York. In our business and economics reporting classes, we’d compare and contrast major Western economies ...