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Infopankki online information service has introduced a User’s Panel to develop information services for immigrants.
The 15-language infopankki.fi portal has been offering information about Finland and about Finnish public services for immigrants since 2003. The User’s Panel is a new addition to this service. All panel members are themselves immigrants, and Infopankki’s development will be shaped by their ideas and input.
Finland is currently home to
191,000 residents with foreign
backgrounds.
Infopankki has an average of
65,000 users a month, with
15% of all searches coming
from abroad.
www.infopankki.fi |
The Panel members represent a wide variety of backgrounds: a spouse, an Ingrian returning migrant, a refugee, a family member of an asylum seeker, a university researcher, a student, a migrant worker, a foreigner considering relocation to Finland, plus a Finn returning after several years abroad. The combined linguistic and education range of the panel covers an extremely broad range, from secondary school graduates to PhD level. The panel was recruited over the summer. Hundreds of applications were received in response to advertisements published widely in many different languages.
The primary aim of the panel is to clarify the immigration process from the perspective of users, and to create best practices and guidelines to streamline the process of moving to Finland.
One panelist is Jay Nanje from Cameroon, who came to Finland five years ago as a student. He says panel membership gives an important chance to be heard and to help improve the general situation for immigrants. Jay sees Infopankki as a good method of actively contributing to society.
Infopankki is run through State and municipal funding. The User’s Panel has proven to be an indispensable tool in Infopankki's renewal process, and will remain a key element of its user-oriented strategy. According to project co-ordinator Ahmed Akar, despite having scarce resources Infopankki will continue to develop the role of the User Panel.
Kristin Ay - HT |
