Pakkastalven huumaa, digitaitoja ja pulkkamäkiä

Konneveden 4H-yhdistys ry on saanut Erasmus+ -rahoituksen vapaaehtoistyöntekijän työllistämiseksi. EVS-vapaaehtoistyöntekijä saapui Konnevedelle marraskuussa 2018. EVS tulee sanoista European Voluntary Service.

Vapaaehtoisen työjakso Konnevedellä kestää helmikuun 2019 loppuun. Vapaaehtoisemme on kiinalainen Mingchen He ja hän saapui meille Unkarista. Vapaaehtoinen voi työskennellä 4H-yhdistyksen lisäksi myös Konneveden kunnan ja sidosryhmiemme palveluksessa.

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Lumikenkäilyä Marjan perheen luona.

During the Christmas time, I visited Seinäjoki and Tampere. Seinäjoki is not a big city. Unlike most other Finnish cities, there are not many lakes around city. But still I found a lake nearby the local central hospital. Walking around lakes and having some peaceful time by just sitting by the lakeside are my favorite things to do. Of course, because the weather was chiily, I couldn’t sit there still. I chose to have a walk. Soon I realized that lake is an artificial one after talking with the local. I didn’t check out what is the real reason behind digging this lake, let me just assume lake has an crucial position in Finnish people’s heart. Until backing to Konnevesi, I got to know Seinäjoki is called “Strawberry Town”. I guess the lake also plays an important role in the water supply for the growth of strawberry J. And Tampere is bigger than I imaged. I am not doing to write in detail, as I was more like a tourist.  

Maijan perheen luona perinteisiä suomalaisia ruokia.

Last few weekends, I visited my mentors - Marja’s family and Maija’s family, I had gotten the chance for first time to try snowshoeing, what’s more, first time to walking on a lake equipped with them. Even though that day was an extremely cold, it was a fabulous experience. I also visited a cinema (which seems the only one within Konnevesi?). At the beginning, I was worried if there are enough audiences to watch out there, as it is located in the small village, but soon I cleared up the doubt by talking to the one of owner there, who had started that business since he was 12 years old. What an unbelievable story. I tried to recall my memory backing to my age of 12, I am the boy who used to be excited for whole day for watching an open-air movie. In addition, I learnt how to cook some Finnish dishes and dessert from Maija. Margit also visited me to visit her family, and shared their stories with me, the most amazing thing to be here for me is getting to know how people live their life here and how this big community works.  

Laskiaispullia, nam!

There was one day in the Lapunmäki school, which is called “Digi Open” (not sure if it is right), which is part of a national program including several Universities. Pedagogical students in University of Jyväskylä joined with the teachers in Lapunmäki school to apply some digital methods to help students for learning, like Typing practice, Swedish language study and so on. It was nice to visit there quickly!

Kyllä hätä keinot keksii!

Finland should be one of the best places for the winter sports. People start skiing at a very early age, even though there are not many mountains. But the heavy snow can make skiing a sport easy to operate. As you can see, there are so many things for me to have a first try, skiing is also a new sport for me to join, although I have watched it on TV many times, it always looks far away from my life, as a person living the places with a little snow. Frankly, it looks very easy to get speed to move forward, but I ended up like a snail. Obviously, there must be something wrong with my skiing skills L. Furthermore, I have to mention sled ride, with mates of international club, we had a sled ride on the hill. I had seen the kids in daycare playing with sled, but never tried it by myself before. The experience proved that sled ride is an very interesting, not just for the kids. Although I didn’t prepare well for clothing ,and have to use the plastic bags wrapping my shoes, this sled ride did bring me to the childhood with a great joy.

Stay tuned,

Mingchen J

Mingchen He työskentelee Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksessä vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä marraskuusta 2018 helmikuulle 2019. Mingchen, tutummin Minski, kertoo työviikoistaan ja kokemuksistaan Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogissa.

Kyläkouluihin tutustumista ja kirpputoreja - Mingchenin kokemuksia Konnevedellä

Konneveden 4H-yhdistys ry on saanut Erasmus+ -rahoituksen vapaaehtoistyöntekijän työllistämiseksi. EVS-vapaaehtoistyöntekijä saapui Konnevedelle marraskuussa 2018. EVS tulee sanoista European Voluntary Service.

Vapaaehtoisen työjakso Konnevedellä kestää helmikuun 2019 loppuun. Vapaaehtoisemme on kiinalainen Mingchen He ja hän saapui meille Unkarista. Vapaaehtoinen voi työskennellä 4H-yhdistyksen lisäksi myös Konneveden kunnan ja sidosryhmiemme palveluksessa.

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 I spent few days in the Hytölä school and Istunmäki school this month. As they are located in the village,the school size are relatively small, compared to Lapunmäki school. But it let me feel closer with the students there. The pupils are adorable, friendly and full of curiosity. Although there was a language barrier, it didn’t influence us to understand each other. They are not just curious about the stories from me, also would like to share their talented skills with me, like gymnastic skills J. As there is no separate dining room for people to have meal, classrooms are turned into dining room which give students and teachers more time to stay together, and helps to reduce the sense of distance between teacher and student. Anyway, I like the harmonious teacher-student relationship in the village schools.

For the break time, we played games together in the field,f rom playing football to sliding down from icy slope, which recalled my memory from  childhood. As the Christmas is approaching, the pupils were preparing for the Christmas party held by school. They invited me to watch their rehearsal in their classroom, where were chock-full of happiness and vitality, it was a pity that I couldn’t join them in that evening. Before leaving, in Istunmäki school, I joined the pupils to assist them to make a mini house out of their prepared gingerbread. And in Hytölä school, I joined their voluntary cooking activity in the kitchen after school to cook some traditional Finnish foods. It is not difficult to imagine that Finnish are good at cooking J.

In addition,thanks Janiela and Hilma giving me these portraitsJ

In a nutshell, it was amazing experience with pupils in the village schools. Actually, it help me spark an idea to work as a teacher. Working with this lovely group of people, it worth all the efforts.

Apart from school, I also visited nursing home, which gave me some impressions from the other side. I still remember the first time, I got the virtually conception with nursing home was about two years ago. My Danish friend shared her family story with me that when her parents need others taking care of them, they will go to stay in nursing home, because they are more professional, she just need visit them now and then. I was confused about this thought at the time. As in my country, there is a strong family bond between children and parents (sometimes it goes too muchL), and it is the children’s responsibility to taking care of their parents who get old.People need more emotional connection.

Now I have better understanding, despite in the nursing home people may miss their home/family, but they can work together to make the place with the atmosphere feel like home. This May, my Finnish friend told me the loneliness is a big problem for the elderly in Finland. In the nursing home, people seems living in a small community, during the meal time or coffer time, people will gather together in the dinning room, having the meal together and talking to each other, even joining some activities together to make the life colorful, for example sing together or some visitors come here to give a performances for the elderly to enrich their life, which is fantastic for the mental health. Here I want to introduce my “Finnish teacher”— Helmi, she is 100 years old, will turns 101 next month, but she could stay young at heart. Although we can’t communicate in Finnish or English, her positive energy can always beyond the language barrier. Sometimes she taught me with Finnish pronounce, and end up with my clumsy way J. Happy to see they have good life there. Certainly, the workers in nursing home contribute a lot for the daily caring.

What’s more, I also visited a second hand shop here last weekend, and I was suddenly in awe of them when I learnt about the story behind of this shop. The owner of the shop is a doctor who volunteered in Africa years ago, after that she didn’t stop providing assistance, which has lasted 20.5 years. When I visited there, the owner’s parents were working there, and friendly provided free tea/coffee and cakes for the consumers. It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions. I love this land, because there are so many golden heart people.

Mingchen J

Mingchen He työskentelee Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksessä vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä marraskuusta 2018 helmikuulle 2019. Mingchen, tutummin Minski, kertoo työviikoistaan ja kokemuksistaan Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogissa.

EVS-vapaaehtoinen saapui: Mingchen on täällä - Mingchen is here!

Konneveden 4H-yhdistys ry on saanut Erasmus+ -rahoituksen vapaaehtoistyöntekijän työllistämiseksi. EVS-vapaaehtoistyöntekijä saapui Konnevedelle marraskuussa 2018. EVS tulee sanoista European Voluntary Service.

Vapaaehtoisen työjakso Konnevedellä kestää helmikuun 2019 loppuun. Vapaaehtoisemme on kiinalainen Mingchen He ja hän saapuu meille Unkarista. Vapaaehtoinen voi työskennellä 4H-yhdistyksen lisäksi myös Konneveden kunnan ja sidosryhmiemme palveluksessa.

Lähde mukaan Mingchenin seikkailuun Suomessa ja seuraa Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogia!

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Ensimmäinen työviikko Konnevedellä 8.11.-18.11.2018 - First week at Konnevesi

Hello, 

I am Mingchen, currently doing my PhD program in Hungary. As I had spent most of time on my professional study, I realized some limitations of my perspective, then started learning something else from other fields and thinking what kind of life I should have and what sort of job should I do (even though I have been studying medicine for 11 years). At the time, I also start paying attention to social problems. Of course, only thinking is not enough,through the experiences of quite a few activities focusing on individual to national level I joined, I found it will be a meaningful job working with youngster, as they could represent the future of our society/countries.

Because volunteer work is something people don’t need think financially, it is more about how do people deal with works from the bottom of heart. European Volunteer Service (EVS) provides numerous chances with different activities for the youngster. As I have the plan working with youngsters in the future, that is why I would like to be a volunteer through EVS to accumulate related experience.

Before joining this program, I joined another one-month volunteer project in Finland, it was a really good memory for me. At the time,there was a lake nearby the place I stayed. I went to there every now and then by sitting beside the lake alone,which made my heart so peaceful. After finishing that project, I thought it will be nice to stay longer to explore more about Finland.

Now here I am. As there was a problem with my residence permit issue, I didn’t arrived to Konnevesi on time. But thankfully, we(with 4H) managed it together. Before arriving to Konnevesi, Heli had already found mentors (families) to help me to adapt to the new environment, and arranged different volunteer works for me. I really appreciate these.

When I arrived to the railway station in Jyväskylä, Heli and Erika were already there waiting for me, then we came back to Konnevesi. When we arrived to Konnevesi, the sky was already dark, it made me surprised that the time was less than 4 pm. As I was in Finland this May, at that time, the sky seemingly like never get dark, I could still remember I sat on the beach at 10 pm with the bright sky. I have to say Finland is a magic land.

This photo was taken at 22:14 of May 8th 2018 in Finland.

The first working day, Heli guided me to the different departments of municipality to connect me to the people I may need work with in the near future. She expected me to remember most people’s name the next day,but I have to say it is really challengeble for me to remember Western names - Heli want's to say that it was only sarcasm! 👀

In the afternoon, we visited different clubs,which was beyond my mind, although Konnevesi is not big, but full of opportunities for the youngsters to approach, range from entertainment to entrepreneurship, you name it. What’s more, even though living in a rural area -- low density residential zone, people can still find the common space in the village to meet their social needs, like training their skills or doing social activities. Maybe there are not many participants to join, but it let me feel there is always a place being ready for the people would like to spend their time outside of home.

In the earlier this week, we visited three schools (two of them are in the village,one is in our “city”) and Day care. I have known Finland has one of the world's best education systems long time ago, so I am always excited to get to know how students spend their time in school. As it was just short stay in there (I will spend more time in these schools later on), but I have found Finnish students have much more time for play than I imagined. For the schools in the village, because of the small number of students, normally, different grades will be combined into one class. I couldn't help thinking of the memory of 100 students in one class when I was in high school. Anyway, the students are very active, curious and energetic. It was very nice experience to talk to them, and answered their questions. What impressed me most was that the students in the preschool, first and second grade group have very good eating behavior. It was so touching to see the little girl/boy using cleaning cloth clean the table after eating.

In the Day care, the kids are very independent. Although they aged from 3 to 5, when the outdoor time comes, they can put on their clothes, shoes and gloves in “a professional way”. I was worried to losing my job there. Another thing I have to say is good discipline, as we organized them to go to forest to play on that day, which need them stand in a line to move there, they kept the line very well, and without asking for assistance on the way to the top. In a nutshell, the small actions always bring me endless deeply impression here.

Christmas is coming!

4H association organized Pre-Christmas Party for the members on Friday evening (16.11.2018). The active members volunteered in the Municipality Center preparing for foods and logistic works, but it will also benefit for them in the long term I am sure. It seems to me that the government is always somewhere hard to approach. In here, Konnevesi, local government not only contribute to deal with public affairs,but also create a harmonious environment for inhabitants to be involved in my view.

When everybody here are waiting for the snow to come. On Saturday,we have gotten a sunny day eventually. It looks much better than the last several days, the world immediately got brighter J

I felt so lucky, as my mentor Ulla-Mari was planning to show me around in the nature nearby, I am a nature lover. Every moment with peace I cherish so much, maybe because I used to live in the places full of people around. After that, we headed to join the activity held by hunting group, I had the chance to taste moose meat over there (although I still have no idea what does moose exactly looks like). On the same table, I got to know Keijo, who was one of the volunteers building the “hunting house” we all were staying, yes,volunteer again, haha. He also introduced the history of “hunting house” for us afterwards.

Stay tuned…

Cheers J

Mingchen

Mingchen He työskentelee Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksessä vapaaehtoistyöntekijänä marraskuusta 2018 helmikuulle 2019. Mingchen, tutummin Minski, kertoo työviikoistaan ja kokemuksistaan Konneveden 4H-yhdistyksen blogissa.