The strategic goal of Finland´s AFS is to become active and well-known as an expert in international expertise and to support our participants as active global citizens. For this project, we have raised four themes from the strategy where we need more knowledge and skill. These four areas are promoting, inclusion in local association activities, supporting host families, getting exchange programs to reaching as many young people as possible and promoting dialogue and cooperation.
Finnish society will become equally multicultural with immigration- refugees, asylum seekers and those who have moved to Finland for work, study or other reasons. AFS´s mission is clear: we want more globally-minded, skilled builders of the future. We want intercultural encounters to lead the young people who have been exchange students for a year to be able to face the difference both empathetically and constructively, whether at school, at work or in other contexts. As an organization based on volunteering, developing the skills of volunteers and supporting and training them is especially important to AFS Finland. We need to make sure that our volunteers have the knowledge and skills to do their different roles. The nature of AFS activities involves people in different age, Finns, and foreigners. Finnish AFS supports and trains them so that they can support the exchange students and host families. In addition to volunteers, employees from the organization can take participate the "Gifts from Europe"-Project. Their training is also extremely important to the organization, as they support not only young participants but also their parents and host families. The strategic goal of Finland´s AFS is to become active and well-known as an expert in international expertise and to support our participants as active global citizens. For this project, we have raised four themes from the strategy where we need more knowledge and skill. These four areas are promoting, inclusion in local association activities, supporting host families, getting exchange programs to reach as many young people as possible and promoting dialogue and cooperation. AFS Intercultural Programs Finland organises a job shadowing project with the title ”Souvenirs from Europe - Enhancing inclusion, dialogue and cooperation through job shadowing”. The project offers our key volunteers and staff members a chance to participate in a job shadowing period in one of our European partner organisations. The job shadowing will be done in pairs. AFS FIN has identified four key areas in which we want to improve our work and which will form the topics of the job shadowing periods: 1. Inclusion of different age groups in local chapters: The participants will follow how the shadowee and the hosting AFS organisation improve the inclusion of different age groups in AFS activities. 2. Happy host families: The participants will become familiar with how the hosting AFS organisation has improved host family satisfaction. Through job shadowing they will gather concrete methods to support host families. 3. Equal opportunities for Finnish youth to participate in an exchange programme: The participants will familiarize themselves with for example the cooperation between local AFS chapters and local schools. 4. Dialogue and cooperation between generations and cultures: The participants will get to know about the advocacy work done by AFS and discuss the importance of dialogue and culture in multicultural societies. The participants will gain means to promote dialogue and culture between different age groups and cultures. Through this project the participants will gain new perspectives to their work, skills and knowledge to contribute to the topic of their visit in their own work and new international connections. They will raise their intercultural competence and motivation. AFS FIN will gain deeper understanding of the topics of the shadowing periods and methods to improve them in our work. The participants will share what they have learned with other employees and volunteers in face-to- face meetings and through social media. Participants will implement at least one new method in their own work. They will also challenge the other volunteers and employees of our organisation to improve the way we carry out our work. The project is expected to have following long-term impact: - Inclusion of different age groups, particularly of young people, as active volunteers in local chapters has increased. They find tasks and roles that they feel ownership for and in which they can promote matters valuable to them. - According to the host family satisfaction survey the satisfaction of host families has increased. - Young people all around Finland apply to exchange programmes. The number of sending participants increases. AFS FIN sends young people abroad from schools in which there has in recent years been no sending activity. - Participants of the shadowing project have the competence to encourage and promote cooperation and dialogue between different age groups and cultures.