Community ambassadors share information with immigrant families on social media in their own language

Different services have found it difficult to reach parents who care for children at home who have moved to Finland recently. Activities and support are available, but the message does not reach all families. There are several reasons for this, such as poor language skills and the habit of obtaining information through acquaintances rather than through official sources. There might also be false information and rumours circulating in the communities.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) involved in integration work are skilled in utilising the grapevine. After discussing the matter with the NGOs, we in the Immigrant Guidance and Advisory Services started thinking about how we could utilise the positive aspects of the grapevine in the city’s activities. An idea was born, and that idea later became the community ambassador model. “We provide families with reliable and interesting information in their own language using platforms that people already use. We want to offer people as easy a way as possible to get started in following Finnish communications, but we also want to inspire enthusiasm for studying the language and to help find events and activities that are suitable for each person’s situation,” says Service Manager Satu Venhola.

Community ambassadors are immigrant women, who are enthusiastic social media users and very familiar with the customs of their own language community. There are currently four community ambassadors. They operate in Arabic, Russian, Persian, and Albanian.

Social media channels vary depending on the language group. The community ambassadors do social media work together with the city’s communications specialist. For example, content planning, monitoring the number of followers, marketing of the channels, and, if necessary, service guidance are carried out in cooperation. “Alone, the city would never be able to take into account the wishes, needs, and social media habits of all cultural groups without the expertise of the community ambassadors. It is really great that we can create interesting and accessible content for new residents and thus support their attachment to Espoo,” says Communications Specialist Ulla-Kaisa Pihlaja. “Merely translating texts is not enough. Through community ambassadors, we can tailor the message to be engaging and understandable for different language groups.”

We want to build the trust the residents, who have moved from abroad, have in the city, its services, and the information produced by public authorities. We know from customer interactions that a person’s background has a major impact on how they view authorities and services. Building trust can take years. The work of a community ambassador is precisely at the core of building trust and sharing reliable information. Here in the Immigrant Guidance and Advisory Services we want to create a positive image of Espoo and convey a message that the city is there for all its residents.

We have learned a great deal of lessons during the community ambassador experiment. There are major differences in social media cultures between different language and cultural groups. Others prefer an official tone and written expression, while others prefer familiar tone and, for example, voice messages. Some perceive the city’s communications as neutral, while others wonder why the city wants to reach them. However, everyone is united by a thirst for knowledge and a desire to understand ‘Finnish logic’. Why are services organised like this? Why are they communicated in this way?

Not everyone necessarily has the skills or motivation to search for information independently. As such, it is particularly important that the community ambassadors encourage their audience to learn new ways. Learning about finding reliable information is part of integration. Our goal is that the city’s message is perceived as reliable, safe, and inviting.

Curiosity towards the surrounding society also functions as motivation to study the language. The enthusiasm for understanding Finnish society is often born in the desire to understand the daily life of one’s child: parents want to understand what the staff at the day-care centre says, to get to know their child’s friends, or to understand the education system in which their child grows up.

The community ambassador activities are part of the City’s Koto-Espoo activities, which provide early-stage integration services for people outside the labour force. The largest target group is currently stay-at-home parents.

Koto-Espoo offers language courses and civic orientation courses (Welcome to Finland courses) for immigrant stay-at-home parents in their own language. During the courses, Espoo’s early childhood education offers club activities for children. Community ambassadors are an important channel for finding Koto-Espoo services. With the new Integration Act, cities are increasingly responsible for the integration of immigrants and the integration of stay-at-home parents.

Reaching immigrant families is not easy. Without partners and networks, the City of Espoo will not succeed in this task. “If we had not had straightforward dialogue with NGOs, community ambassador activities would never have been born. Both the idea for the activities and most of the community ambassadors currently working have been found through NGOs,” says Satu Venhola.

In addition to cooperation with NGOs, it is important to have joint communication with child health clinics and other services for families with children in the wellbeing services county. The aim of the Immigrant Guidance and Advisory Services is to make this cooperation more effective in the future.