thisisFINLAND Foreign Correspondents' Programme
Experiencing Finland through the young journalist's eyes
Hi you all! I am Nicolás Monteverde. But most of the people only call me Nico. I will tell you a bit of myself, and why I’m so very interested in Finnish culture and admire Finland in many ways.
Since I have memories, I have been amazed by nature. Some of my first memories are related to watching close spiders building webs in the garden of my grandmother or picking the feathers that fall ...
My love for Finland started with my uncle telling me soothing stories about the Nordic countries. He even taught me an acronym for them: FINDS. Deep down I wondered if I’d ever get to visit at least one of them.
The odds weren’t promising. Travel isn’t exactly cheap from Nigeria. So I followed thisisFINLAND and Guide to Iceland accounts on Instagram and allowed myself to enjoy ...
“My country has failed me, at this point I do not feel proud to be Mexican. My daughter is dead, I feel like I am dead and justice…well, we do not have the money to pay for it, unfortunately”. I remember listening to this quote in a press conference. It was June 20, 2018. This phrase (with different words, similar meanings) repeated itself during ...
I remember the day I was interviewed for the FCP program at the embassy of Finland located in Seoul. It was a sound sunny day in April. Before I left the meeting room after the nice and comfortable conversation about Finland and myself, with two kind officers, I showed them my laptop fully covered with old Moomin stickers which I attached on it over 3 years ago.
I said that it must be a super-fantastic ...
“We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most… Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to,” Trevor Noah
I am George Maringa, a Kenyan journalist and a passionate story teller. I was born and raised in Sagana, a small town in Kirinyaga County in Central Kenya, located about 100km ...
That is the usual question people ask me when we meet for the first time. It is quite boring and I often don’t know what to answer. I don’t watch movies that much, I don’t exercise or do yoga, and I don’t drink.
But recently, I found the perfect answer: “Exploring new worlds”. Never heard of that answer? Yes, it’s an original one by me.
A person like me who gets bored easily is always ...
I am a multimedia journalist currently living in New Delhi, the capital of India. In less than a month I will be travelling to Finland, a country that has always piqued my curiosity.
My resolve to begin my Finnish journey gathered momentum during my student exchange program in Paris last year. While studying international affairs and development studies in Sciences Po, Paris, I was able to look ...
My name is Siyu Lei. When I was asked to introduce myself, I thought about the three countries where I was fortunate to spend the past six years, and how three of them together helped define who I am today. Here goes.
In 2012, I left my hometown Zhengzhou, China for my first trans-Pacific flight. After some thirty hours of flying, and within minutes of arriving at the unfamiliar university campus, ...
That’s me in the photo, sneaking an hour at work to write up this blog post. It’s been a little over two months since I received the call from the Finnish Embassy congratulating me for having been chosen for the programme, and ever since, googling everything about Finland has become my new pastime. As someone who holds views on society and religion that sit at odds with the majority’s ...
It’s been a little bit more than two months since I was informed that I’ve been selected to participate in this year’s Foreign Correspondents’ Programme. It seems like a long time ago but I still can’t completely believe this is happening and that in less than a month I will be traveling to an amazing country I’ve never been before.
I’m really excited ...