Now that the Kindergarten project has started up again with a new Exchange Participant it's a good time to reminiscence, reflect and look back a bit. Kindergarten Tenavat Myötätuulessa in Jyväskylä had an exchange participant from August until mid-September 2013. Here's what they had to say about the project and their feedback to both AIESEC Jyväskylä and EP Sandra. Sandra's own experience will follow up soon, stay tuned!
Compiled from staff experiences by Saila Raappana-Mäkelä.
"At first we didn't really know what to expect from the project - we joined to gain cultural exchange and multiculturality into our kindergarten at least. It was the first time this project was conducted and we were all a bit nervous but also excited!
In the kindergarten our everyday life went smoothly. Language wasn't an issue at all - English became a means of communication effortlessly, and
suddenly even the children knew how to say lots of things in English.
Everyone spoke according to their own skill level and there was a lot of
laughter. Many of the parents of the children talked to Sandra, and expressed their happiness
over the fact that their children could experience a person from another
country and make friends with her. Even today the kids say Sandra had fun games, their favourite was an elephant ballgame. The English songs have stayed, we still sing those with the kids. During the last week of her stay Sandra made Croatian baked goods with the children.
Our everyday in the host family went smoothly as well, Sandra stayed with my family for 5 weeks and
one week in a customer's family. For us Sandra became like a daughter.
In the evenings we talked a lot about children, families and the Finnish
lifestyle in general. She didn't hesitate to ask questions and we laughed a lot - humour definitely brought us together.
We baked karjalanpiirakka (karelian pie) together and often when I came
home from work Sandra had prepared salad or baked something. She
loved to go to the sauna, and whenever guests came over she blended
in effortlessly. During her freetime Sandra spent time with some of our
co-workers. Cycling around lake Jyväsjärvi was a memorable moment to one
of our workers. Sandra's stay with us united us workers too, we for
example visited each others' houses and did all kinds of things
together.
Sandra was really independent and at
the end had a lot of friends and things to do around Jyväskylä. Sandra even visited the Santa Clause village in Rovaniemi and brought back a picture of her with Santa! The children thought it was really exciting.
We warmly recommend this unique experience to other kindergartens!"
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