ByTiina Kotka
Adviser Hua Lei (age 33) assists residents and immigrants at Virka Info.
What does your work involve?
I’m an adviser at Virka Info in the Helsinki City Hall. I inform our customers about Helsinki and the City’s services. I split my time between advising and co-ordinating in NEO, which is a joint project of the Helsinki metropolitan area’s cities to develop information services for immigrants.
What services does Virka Info provide?
Virka Info serves all Helsinki residents and provides special guidance in immigration-related questions. We collaborate with the Helsinki Register Office, the Police and the Finnish Immigration Service. We serve in more than 10 languages. I work a lot with Chinese-speaking customers. Most Chinese people in Helsinki are here for work or studies. Virka Info also includes Info Bank, an information service on the Web in 15 languages.
What is your background?
Before joining Virka Info, I was a project assistant in multiculturalism training at Oiva Akatemia, which is the City of Helsinki’s internal leadership institute. Earlier, I was a research assistant in an Asia studies project at the University of Jyväskylä. I graduated from the same university with a master’s degree in Social Sciences, majoring in Political Science.
What message do you wish to give to citizens?
Everybody can be uncertain about what authority to turn to with some question. We at Virka Info can help. Our shelves are filled with brochures, and our reading corner has newspapers and magazines. We provide 6 computers for use by customers and wireless internet access. To quote Helsinki Mayor Jussi Pajunen: “Welcome to the City Hall lobby. This is your living room.”
Virka Info
The City of Helsinki information services for residents and immigrants are focused in Virka Info, which is located in the City Hall. Virka Info has 10 employees and serves in Finnish, Swedish, English, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, French, German, Kurdish, Russian, Somali and Turkish. The City Hall lobby received 125,000 visitors in 2011, and the Virka Info staff assisted 3,200 customers in questions related to immigration. Contact: Virka Info, Pohjoisesplanadi 11–13, service hours Mon-Fri 9-19, Sat-Sun 10-16, phone 09-310 11111 (phone service hours Mon-Fri 9-15), virkainfo@hel.fi, www.virka.fi. The online information service Info Bank is at www.infopankki.fi.
Translated by Johanna Lemola