Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre students attend integration field trip
Integration Foundation supports integration of Ida-Viru County doctors
Museum of Occupations showcases national minority history for students
Careers project helped 300 young immigrants choose a profession
Russian Cultural Centre presents children’s opera in Estonian and Russian
Russian-language special edition of Täheke magazine released in October 
Estonian language studies and teacher placement programme for vocational school teachers to resume this autumn

Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre students attend integration field trip

With the support of the Ministry of Education and Research, 35 students from Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre (HVEC) with different mother tongues were given the opportunity to attend a field trip to southern Estonia to learn more about the nation’s cultural heritage and to thereby boost their civic awareness.

The students, 10 of whom have mother tongues other than Estonian, went on the field trip to Tartu, Otepää and Äksi on 24 & 25 September to take part in a range of activities designed to promote integration. These included a visit to the Estonian Flag Museum, at which they discovered where the famous blue, black and white national flag originated, and the Estonian National Museum, where they found out how different cultures, faiths and traditions have shaped the Estonian nation and state. The students also visited the AHHAA Science Centre, the University of Tartu and the Ice Age Centre at Äksi.

The response to the field trip from both the Estonian-speaking students and those with other languages as their mother tongues was overwhelmingly positive. The students from other linguistic backgrounds said that an awareness of what had shaped Estonian customs, traditions and national identity contributed to a better understanding of the cultures of other people. A number of students from all linguistic backgrounds said after visiting the Estonian Flag Museum that they felt they were now better citizens for what they had seen and experienced there.

“The two days they spent on the field trip really gave the kids a tangible understanding of Estonia’s history and what it’s like today,” said Elle Teder, a teacher from the HVEC and the person behind the project. “It was a really useful trip in terms of integrating people from different backgrounds, because it allowed us all to get a better feel not only for other cultures, but also our own – meaning we understand each other better, too.”

More details of the HVEC field trip can be found online via this link (in Estonian). 

The ‘Who we are, where we come from, where we are going and who we will become’ project carried out by the Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre was supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Toivo Sikk, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9850 / E-mail: toivo.sikk@meis.ee

Integration Foundation supports integration of Ida-Viru County doctors

Under the aegis of the Ida-Viru Central Hospital foundation and with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation and the Ministry of Culture, doctors and medics from Ida-Viru County attended Estonian language courses, got to know more about Estonian culture and took part in integration seminars and excursions to hospitals during the year. A total of 30 medical workers participated in the project.

A compendium was also produced as part of the project which provides workers in the medical field and anyone else interested with information about language learning, education and social services in Estonia and which shines the spotlight on the country’s social organisation, way of life and culture.

“The project’s been really valuable, because it hasn’t just boosted language and culture awareness among the doctors and medics taking part, but also their sense of community,” said Jana Tondi, director of the Multicultural Education Unit of the Integration Foundation. “And that will lead to a better and broader understanding of our medical landscape as a whole.”

The project was run with the support of the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals, the Ministry of Culture and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Maria Ratassepp, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9039 / E-mail: maria.ratassepp@meis.ee

Museum of Occupations showcases national minority history for students

The Museum of Occupations in Tallinn awaits visits from school groups so as to showcase for them the history of national minorities using interactive teaching materials designed especially for this purpose. The education programme in question was developed as part of the ‘Attacks and migrations’ exhibition, which highlighted the fate of national minorities in Estonia between 1940 and 1991. A short film was also produced for the exhibition that uses photos to tell the story of one family’s flight from Estonia in 1944.

The destinies of the Baltic Germans, Swedes, Russians, Jews, Ingrian Finns, Latvians, Roma, Belarusians and Ukrainians living in Estonia were influenced by World War II, mobilisations, deportations, escapes and post-war industrial immigration, which changed the population of the country significantly. The aim of the education programme offered by the Museum of Occupations is to showcase for representatives of the different nationalities living in the country their own story in Estonia – how and why their forefathers came to be here or why they were forced to leave.

“As 70 years has passed since the biggest forced migrations, it’s important that young people living in Estonia are reminded, in pictures and words, of what’s actually happened in this country,” said Heidy Eskor-Kiviloo, the director of the project. “The interactive teaching materials can be presented to students on tablets in workshops designed especially for them.”

To take part in the programme, groups should register in advance by e-mailing muuseum@okupatsioon.ee or calling Marika Pihel on +372 668 0250.

The ‘Attacks and migrations’ exhibition will re-open in spring 2015.

The short film which uses photos to tell the story of one family’s flight from Estonia can be viewed on YouTube in Estonian, Russian or English.

The ‘Attacks and migrations’ project carried out by the Kistler-Ritso Eesti foundation was supported by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals, the Ministry of Culture and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Maria Ratassepp, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9039 / E-mail: maria.ratassepp@meis.ee

Careers project helped 300 young immigrants choose a profession

A series of career training events and visits to workplaces and educational institutions around Estonia have been held as part of a careers project launched by BDA Consulting OÜ which was aimed at young people aged 16-26 with citizenship of third countries in Europe.

During the visits the young people came into contact with a variety of fields of work – from IT and logistics through to catering and the media. It was not only colleges and vocational schools that they visited, but companies like Skype, Tallinn Airport, the Ugala Theatre, DBT Muuga, TV3 and Swissôtel Tallinn. As part of the visits the youngsters were also exposed to voluntary work opportunities. Representatives of the Food Bank, the Red Cross and the Telliskivi Society, volunteer rescuers, assistant police officers, youth workers, people from the Black Nights Film Festival and the AHHAA Science Centre and many more shared their experiences with the attendees. A special website www.karjäärikompass.ee (in Estonian and Russian) was also set up as part of the project, helping the youngsters map out their career choices.

More than 300 young people from the target group were assisted in the planning of their careers by BDA Consulting OÜ as part of the project.

The project was financed by the Integration and Migration Foundation, the Ministry of Culture and the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals.

For further information please contact: Maria Ratassepp, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9039 / E-mail: maria.ratassepp@meis.ee

Russian Cultural Centre presents children’s opera in Estonian and Russian

Under the aegis of the Russian Philharmonic Society, Estonian audiences will enjoy a brand new opera based on three fairytales as performed by Estonian- and Russian-speaking children at the Russian Cultural Centre on 22 November.

The opera is based on Pushkin’s The Tale of the Priest and his Workman Balda, Marshak’s The Tale of the Stupid Mouse and Samoilov’s The Baby Elephant Has Gone to Study, with the children performing in both languages simultaneously. The opera based on Pushkin’s fairytale will be performed in conjunction with professional soloists.

The aim of this bilingual musical spectacular is to showcase Russian poetry to Estonian children and to give Estonian- and Russian-speaking children the chance to mix and make friends. It also hopes to provide the children’s parents with a frisson of recognition of the texts themselves. Vladimir Ignatov, the director of the Russian Philharmonic Society, says the opera requires serious preparation in musical terms and will be of interest not only to the children, but also their parents and the public generally.

The opera will be staged at the Russian Cultural Centre at 16:00 on 22 November. Admission is free of charge.

The project is being supported by the Tallinn Happy Homes Programme and the Integration and Migration Foundation. The cost of renting the venue is being partially covered from resources of the base financing of national minority culture associations. The project’s partners are the Tallinn Slavic Cultural Society, the Russian Theatre School, Sed Arte, the Russian Cultural Centre, Tallinn English College and the harpsichord class of the Estonian Academy of Theatre and Music.

For further information please contact: Kristina Pirgop, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9024 / E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee;

Vladimir Ignatov, director, Russian Philharmonic Society / Mobile: +372 5561 2554

Russian-language special edition of Täheke magazine released in October

Cooperation between the Integration and Migration Foundation and the Kultuurileht foundation led to the release in October of a special Russian-language edition of the children’s magazine Täheke which was designed to showcase contemporary Estonian children’s literature to Russian-speaking children living in the country.

“Publishing a Russian-language version of Täheke is all about offering kids age-appropriate reading from much loved and up-and-coming children’s authors and developing reading culture among kids in Estonia, regardless of their mother tongue,” explained Ilona Kivirähk, a project manager with the Kultuurileht foundation.

The special edition of the magazine has been provided to libraries all over Estonia and can be found in their children’s sections. It has also been provided to hospitals and can be borrowed from their mobile libraries. Some of the print-run of the special issue will be presented at international book fairs in Bologna, Moscow and St Petersburg by the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre and the Estonian Publishers Association. Copies will also make their way into schools with Russian as the language of instruction via the Estonian Institute.

“And since all first-graders who visit a library will get a copy to take home with them as a gift, this latest release in the world of Estonian children’s literature will also reach teachers and parents,” Kivirähk said.

The ‘Täheke in Russian 2014’ project is supported by the Integration and Migration Foundation from the state budget resources of the Ministry of Culture.

For further information please contact: Marina Fanfora, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9068 / E-mail: marina.fanfora@meis.ee

Estonian language studies and teacher placement programme for vocational school teachers to resume this autumn

With the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation, teachers of vocational education groups with Russian as the language of instruction are taking part in a teacher placement programme and studying Estonian on 100-hour courses so as to prepare for the transition to Estonian-language teaching in vocational education.

Five teachers from the Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Centre resumed studies in September, starting a course in Estonian at the B2 level which will continue through to the end of November. This course will turn attention to the development of administrative writing skills, which are much needed by the teachers. The activities of the participants can be followed on an in-depth, well-illustrated blog (in Estonian) from which everyone taking part in the programme can draw motivation. A further 40 teachers from Lasnamäe Mechanics School in Tallinn, the School of Informatics and Computer Science and Narva Vocational Studies Centre are also attending Estonian courses, where in addition to ordinary classroom work they are being taken on field trips to vocational schools with Estonian as the language of instruction and to Estonian-language theatres.

Five teachers with mother tongues other than Estonian from vocational schools in Tallinn are taking part in teacher placements in other schools this autumn in order to broaden their professional horizons and gain exposure to other teaching methods. They have been placed in Haapsalu Vocational Education Centre, Tartu Vocational Education Centre and Räpina School of Horticulture for a period of 12 days. Before, during and after the placements the teachers will be working with support staff at their own schools and at the schools to which they have been appointed. You can find out what impressions the teachers participating in the placements took away from their experience in the December newsletter of the Integration and Migration Foundation.

The placements and Estonian language studies are supported through the ‘Language Studies Development 2011-2013’ programme of the European Social Fund.

For further information please contact: Liilika Raudhein, Coordinator, Lifelong Learning Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9841 / E-mail: liilika.raudhein@meis.ee

Youngsters integrate at Kumu under guidance of New York artist
Sunday school teachers and directors attend autumn school
Marie Under’s life story translated into Russian
Work placement programme for vocational school teachers ends

Youngsters integrate at Kumu under guidance of New York artist

Coordinated by the Integration and Migration Foundation, the Art Museum of Estonia (known as Kumu) is engaging 180 Estonian- and Russian-speaking students in an integration-based art education project being led by New York artist Tom Russotti. A documentary will be produced of the activities that take place as part of the project, with the participants contributing to its development.

The project, which goes by the title of ‘Kumu aesthletics’, brings together art appreciation and sport, i.e. aesthetics and athletics. Aesthletics is based on the idea of taking a creative approach to sport, which by its nature is controllable and quantifiable and therefore stands in contrast to art. Russotti has worked under the aegis of aesthletics elsewhere in Europe and also in Japan. Now it has brought him to Estonia, where he will be guiding local youngsters using the architecture and content of Kumu and investigating possibilities of sport as art practice in this environment.

Almost 180 Estonian- and Russian-speaking students from Grades 1-9 will be taking part in the project. Activities will be conducted in mixed groups so that students from different linguistic backgrounds can work together and communicate. The organisers of the project are hoping that in doing so the students will improve their social skills and that it will lead to greater understanding and cultural awareness.

The ‘Kumu aesthletics’ project is being supported by the Ministry of Culture. Its implementation is being coordinated by the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Marina Fanfora, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9068 / E-mail: marina.fanfora@meis.ee

Sunday school teachers and directors attend autumn school

With the coordination of the Integration and Migration Foundation and under the aegis of the Tallinn Pushkin Institute, an autumn school was held at Vidrikese Holiday Centre in Otepää for national minority Sunday school teachers and directors from 7-9 November. The programme was wide-ranging, from teaching methodology showcases to brainstorming.

The presentations given and discussions held at the three-day event were led by experts in the respective fields. In her presentation, Pushkin Institute director Inga Mangus looked at styles and methods of teaching foreign languages and acquiring material. She also got the audience involved in brainstorming, finding solutions to a number of issues that teachers encounter in their everyday work at Sunday schools. Alla Kirillova, a teacher and methodology specialist from Tallinn High School no. 21, discussed topics related to measuring students’ results, while psychologist Irina Tolstoi introduced to listeners the ethics of pedagogical communication. Public speaking trainer Natalja Jagintseva’s talks on feedback on the learning process and setting goals were also warmly received. Entertainment at the event was provided by the NPO Sebra, under whose guidance the attendees were able to take part in interactive theatre. They were also able to watch the film Dead Poets Society.

Sharing her autumn school experiences was Ida-Viru County Ingrian Finn society ‘Lemminkäinen’ Sunday school Finnish language and culture teacher Elsa Jagula. “The three days we spent in the beautiful surroundings of Otepää gave us a real boost to take back to school with us,” she said. “The people who gave the talks and led the workshops were fantastic. Since my educational background is in technology, and most of my teaching knowledge I’ve obtained through training provided by the Integration Foundation, I was really impressed with the simple and very clear examples we were given on how to teach more effectively. That’s encouraged me to try different approaches and methods with the kids.”

The teachers and directors from the Sunday schools came together again at Vidrikese Holiday Centre on 6 & 7 December, where the main theme of their training was developing the listening, speaking, reading and writing skills of children of different ages in lessons.

The organisation of in-service training and the autumn school for teachers and directors of national minority Sunday schools is supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and organised by the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Kristina Pirgop, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9024 / E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee; Irina Zahharova, Tallinn Pushkin Institute / E-mail: info@pushkin.ee / Telephone: +372 648 7794

Marie Under’s life story translated into Russian

With the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation, Sirje Kiin’s monograph ‘Marie Under: Her Life and Poetry’ has now been translated into Russian. Kiin has entered into negotiations with the University of Tartu Press for publication of the monograph.

“Translating the dramatic life story of Estonia’s most influential 20th-century female poet into Russian gives Russian-speaking readers a chance to understand Estonian history, culture and literature more deeply and to find out about the life and legacy of a truly talented poet,” said Jana Tondi, the director of the foundation’s Lifelong Learning Unit.

The monograph was translated by Boris Tuch and Igor Kotjuh and the poems by Marina Tervonen. The translated text was shortened and adapted for Russian-speaking readers.

The ‘Marie Under: Her Life and Poetry’ project was supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Maria Ratassepp, Coordinator, Multicultural Education Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9039 / E-mail: maria.ratassepp@meis.ee

Work placement programme for vocational school teachers ends

The work placement programme for vocational school teachers came to an end in November. Eight teachers of groups with Russian as the language of instruction from six schools in Tallinn took part in the programme with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation. The aim of the programme was to prepare the teachers for the transition to Estonian-language studies in vocational secondary education.

Teachers of logistics, cooking, applied mathematics, biology/gardening, art and computer studies with mother tongues other than Estonian took part in the programme. They were from Tallinn School of Service, Tallinn Transport School, the School of Informatics and Computer Science, Tallinn Lasnamäe Mechanics School, Tallinn Kopli Professional School and Tallinn Building School.

The majority of the placements lasted for 12 days, with only the teacher from Tallinn Building School undertaking a 24-day placement. The teachers were placed at the Haapsalu, Pärnu County and Tartu Vocational Education Centres and Räpina School of Horticulture. Before, during and after the placements they worked with support teachers in both their own schools and the new schools they were placed in.

“Feedback on the placements has been positive, from both the teachers themselves and the support teachers at their own schools and the schools they were placed in,” said Liilika Raudhein, a coordinator with the Lifelong Learning Unit at the Integration Foundation. “The biggest challenges they said they faced were communicating in Estonian and understanding the use of language of the students in the classes they sat in on. The support teachers said the work placement teachers were able to make themselves understood and obtain any information they needed, and that in doing so they realised even more how important it is to be able to speak Estonian in order to get by in this country.”

Marina Vigant, a teacher in applied mathematics from the School of Informatics and Computer Science, was placed at Tartu Vocational Education Centre, where she was able to take part in a round table on the development of the IT specialist study programme for industrial companies. She also sat in on a number of different lessons – financial mathematics, automation of administration and web programming – and gave a maths lesson herself in Estonian. “The placement was really interesting, and certainly very useful,” she said. “I learnt a lot of new Estonian vocabulary in my field, got some experience teaching Estonian students in Estonian and reviewed the new Estonian-language vocational education curriculum.”

Work placements are financed by the Ministry of Education and Research via the ‘In-service training for vocational school teachers’ project of the ‘Language Studies Development 2011-2013’ programme supported by the European Social Fund. The ‘Language Training Development 2011-2013’ programme is being implemented in Estonia by the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Liilika Raudhein, Coordinator, Lifelong Learning Unit / Telephone: +372 659 9841 / E-mail: liilika.raudhein@meis.ee

Ready, steady, art!
Legendary children’s magazine Täheke issued a number in Russian
MISA got students from Southern Estonia involved in discussions on democracy
Methodical handbook for teaching biology at upper secondary school published
68 teachers passed in-service training to work with students who have a native language other than the language of instruction
Last year 64 Estonians returned to their home country with the support of MISA

Ready, steady, art!
Meelika Hirmo

The Estonian Art Museum’s exhibition site Kumu brought together approximately 180 young teenagers from Estonian as well as Russian schools in order to combine athletic and mobile lifestyles with art and get students out of their daily routines.

The recently finished project ‘Kumu aesthletics’ was conducted in cooperation with an American, Tom Russotti, who is running the Institute for Aesthletics, and is about doing sports as art practice.

“Tom has been in Estonia before and considers sport as a mixture of physical activity, social communication, moving, performance and rituals. He created a special programme for children and added English to our communication, in addition to the Estonian and Russian already in use. Thanks to that, our students understood that there are many different languages, Russian or Estonian is just one among the many,” says Meeri Talvistu, employee of the Kumu educational centre and one of the coordinators of the project.

The objective of the project financed by the Integration and Migration Foundation (MISA) and the Ministry of Culture was to support the cooperation between children in a playful environment through art-related activities that are connected with sports. “We wanted the children to learn how to consider the opinions and interests of and understand one another better,” Talvistu commented.

Art and body language

During the lessons that took place once a week three weeks in a row, students were encouraged to think in art and body language in addition to Estonian, Russian and English, but upon request also in other languages. The experience of the Kumu Art Museum with the joint projects of Estonian and Russian-speaking children has shown that the language barrier does not hinder students working together.

“At first it could be seen that it wasn’t very easy for them. There was some resistant attitude from both sides and quite a lot of baggage that was brought along. It was nice to see how these issues were put behind through joint activities. In the end children were looking forward to working in pairs,” Talvistu expressed her joy.

The different team and exiting activities developed various skills, including visual attention. Active pattern hunt directed the participants to look at the Kumu building with a new view and identify the patterns within the building as well as outside the museum. The children were encouraged to move between the floors, sit on the floor, run on ramps and generally just feel good. In the framework of the programme a completely new sport was played: a mixture of handball and football – bootball.

“This year is the Year of Physical Activity and we wanted to support this idea. Doing sports and moving does not always mean you have to sweat a lot. The aim is to get children to be active.”

See the movie and photos about the project on Kumu’s website:
www.kumu.ee/et/mida-kumus-teha/kumu-estleetika

The project ‘Kumu aesthletics’ is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the implementation is coordinated by Integration and Migration Foundation.

Additional information: Marina Fanfora, Coordinator of Occupational Centre, phone 659 9068, e-mail marina.fanfora@meis.ee

Legendary children’s magazine Täheke issued a number in Russian
Meelika Hirmo

Children’s magazine Täheke, which has given joy and new knowledge to children since 1960, will reach even more kids as a special Russian issue for the third year in a row.

With its 8,500 copies and 5,200 subscribers, the Estonian children’s magazine Täheke has the largest circulation primarily meant for 5–9-year old children. The children’s magazine is published in Estonian once a month, whereas the Russian Täheke has been published once a year since 2011. The editor-in-chief of Täheke admits that the reason lies in the small interest of the subscribers.

“When looking at the statistics of the people subscribing to magazines in Ida-Viru County, you can see that it is not possible. Parents must be very willing and interested and we need the state’s support as well. People have tried to do these Russian magazines, but they have not been successful. Perhaps those special projects when the magazine is free of charge is the only reasonable substitute,” Kivirähk reasons.

Not one of those “pink Barbie magazines”

Kivirähk admits that in Estonia you can buy different pink “Barbie magazines” and other publications issued for business reasons, but there are no ad-free developing magazines that promote reading and are aimed at children. The children’s magazines in Russian that have been ordered from St. Petersburg and Moscow and are occasionally sold at kiosks are rather aimed at advertising and pop culture.

Täheke is free from commerce and does not try to sell anything to children. The aim is to introduce domestic high-level literature and occasionally there is some foreign valuable literature meant for kids. Kivirähk emphasises that this is not a magazine that is a teacher to the child and an all-knowing aunt, who says what should be done and how. Täheke is more like a good friend that considers involving the kid important. Therefore the magazine actively publishes children’s work too.

“We offer contemporary reading to children. We are definitely not a pop-culture magazine, but we aim to speak in a modern language. If values have changed life, we must change as well. Naturally the essence is the same – we publish small stories for children interested in the world,” says Kivirähk.

This year the circulation of the Russian Täheke is 6,000 copies and the issues were distributed to libraries and schools all over the world free of charge. In many schools Täheke is used as study material providing extra value in addition to textbooks and other books. Kivirähk assures that there is plenty of interest in publishing the issue and if the project is supported in the future too, the editorial team will make children happy with a new addition next year as well.

Smart pillow and sheep for mayor

The Russian Täheke is not a translation of the last Estonian issue, but includes the best stories, poetry and other materials written for children for the past year. You can find anecdotes, puzzles, a cartoon strip, a crossword, the cooking corner and many other exciting things.

In this year’s issue there is a story, ‘Smart Pillow’, which is about a boy who puts a math book underneath his pillow when going to sleep, hoping to learn the subject this way. In the morning it turns out that the pillow has become wise. The smart pillow, which has even learned how to talk, starts teaching the boy and in the end even becomes the school’s math teacher.

In the same issue there is another funny story about a sheep that is given as a gift to a mother and a boy by an aunt living in the country. The sheep becomes a great favourite of the town’s people, clipping the parks and grass, designing gardens, and finally ending up as the mayor.

Täheke in Russian can be read in the local library and in most schools.

The Estonian magazine can be ordered on 617 7717 or by mailing to tellimine@expresspost.ee and read on the Internet: http://taheke.delfi.ee/taheke.

COMMENT
Anne-Ly Reimaa, Deputy Secretary-General for Cultural Diversity of the Ministry of Culture

Cooperation is the foundation of integration. It is best supported by contacts between people. Sports competitions, cultural events, joint activities and teamwork for a specific purpose create positive experience. It is said that shared joy is double joy. Any kind of joint activity helps people understand each other better. We definitely want to continue supporting the cooperation activities of the younger as well as the older generation.  For this, the Integration and Migration Foundation has developed several project competitions that promote the communication, understanding and mutual recognition of Estonians and other nations living here. Culture and sport are definitely some of the best and easiest ways to do this.

The ‘Täheke in Russian 2014’ project is supported by the Integration and Migration Foundation from the state budget resources of the Ministry of Culture.

Additional information: Marina Fanfora, Coordinator of Occupational Centre, phone 659 9068, e-mail marina.fanfora@meis.ee

MISA got students from Southern Estonia involved in discussions on democracy

In the autumn, the Tartu Club of the NPO Avatud Vabariik (Open Republic) visited various schools in Southern Estonia with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation (MISA) and the Ministry of Education and Research in order to discuss the subjects civil society, democracy and human rights with youth. In addition, essay writing and drawing contests took place with schoolchildren all over Estonia competing.

During the project, NPO Avatud Vabariik visited four schools in Southern Estonia: Valga Russian Upper Secondary School, Lähte Co-Educational Upper Secondary School, Tartu Annelinna Upper Secondary School and Põltsamaa Co-Educational Upper Secondary School. In all schools the rights and obligations of the pupils as the citizens of the Republic of Estonia were discussed with primary school pupils. The basic school pupils were involved in the discussions of subjects important in the state and local level, which included the issues regarding Estonian language and citizenship, LGBT and school violence. The discussions were fascinating and brought excitement to the school day both of younger and older pupils.

The essay and drawing contests were popular: 50 pupils from the primary school submitted their work to the drawing competition “It’s good to live in Estonia” and 60 essays about the positive sides and problems in Estonia as well as more thorough overviews of the citizen status were received from basic school students. The best pupils were rewarded in a festive Christmas dinner that took place on 12 December in Tartu where all the schoolchildren who had participated in the project in one way or another were invited.

“As most of the projects are organised in Harju and Ida-Viru Counties, we are pleased that NPO Avatud Vabariik chose to include the schools of this region.  Involving the youth of Southern Estonia in such civil education and tolerance projects gives them the opportunity to create contacts not only in their own area, but also in the region as a whole,” commented Field Manager of the MISA Development Centre Toivo Sikk.

“The feedback gathered from schools about the visits as well as creative competitions was positive – students were interested in the subjects and methods and the discussion programme was a nice change from the everyday school routine. We believe and hope that we can create and organise such projects in the future too,” commented the Project Manager of NGO Avatud Vabariik Katariina Kiiver.

The project “Increasing the awareness of the youth of Southern Estonia about democracy, tolerance and civil society” was supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Integration and Migration Foundation. 

Additional information: Toivo Sikk, Field Manager of the MISA Development Centre, phone: 659 9850, e-mail: toivo.sikk@meis.ee

Methodical handbook for teaching biology at upper secondary school published

A methodical handbook for teaching biology in Russian schools commissioned by the Integration and Migration Foundation (MISA) and supported by the Ministry of Culture was published, with the aim to aid teachers in teaching biology and pupils who speak Russian as their native language in learning.

Estonia’s challenge is to transfer to Estonian-language studies in schools, in order to ensure equal opportunities for all the citizens of Estonia. The teachers of biology, chemistry and languages composed a methodical handbook in order to make this transition easier and support the use of the textbook “Biology for Upper Secondary School” (A. Tenhunen et al Avita 2012) in conformity with the national curriculum.

“The handbook is structured as a collection of lesson summaries, covering the 30 subjects in the national curriculum of biology, with references to the connections with the curriculum of chemistry. In order to help the learner understand and acquire the contents of the subject, the integrated subject and language teaching (ISLS) methodology was adopted. Study texts are supplemented by study tasks, exercises, language teaching tasks, etc. The handbook comes with a CD, including supplementary presentations and 78 worksheets, which the teacher can print our or display on screen,” the coordinator of the MISA occupational centre Marina Fanfora introduced the contents of the handbook.

The PDF file of the handbook can be accessed here. 

The handbook is presented to biology and chemistry teachers at the beginning of 2015 in Tallinn and Ida-Viru County:

on 15 February in the Tallinn Central Library, Estonia pst 8 at 14:30 pm;
on 22 January 2015 at the Narva College of the University of Tartu at 14:00 pm.

The participants are introduced the handbook, its contents and some subjects. In addition, Dr. Riina Zordania will be speaking of implementing the achievements of genetics in daily practice. People who wish to participate in the event are requested to inform of their attendance at etalon2020@gmail.com.

The handbook was published with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation and the Ministry of Education and Research. The project was led by the foundation REC Estonia, later by the Environmental Education Association Etalon.

Additional information: Marina Fanfora, Coordinator of Occupational Centre, phone 659 9068, e-mail marina.fanfora@meis.ee

68 teachers passed in-service training to work with students who have a native language other than the language of instruction

The University of Tartu and Tallinn University organised two in-service training courses for Estonian language and class teachers supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Our People Integration and Migration Foundation (MISA) in order to introduce teachers the concept of teaching students who have a native language other than the language of instruction and offer practical methods for supporting immigrants students.

68 teachers passed the in-service training: 33 teachers in the training organised by Tallinn University and 35 in the training of the University of Tartu. The training programmes contained lectures, school visits with lesson observations and meetings with the representatives of other cultures in Estonia. Study films were included in the programme too.

“Teachers across Estonia participated in the training of the University of Tartu. Among other things, the studies in Tallinn Lilleküla Upper Secondary School was observed where several practices have been developed for teaching in a multicultural class, the Armenian Cultural Association was visited in Tartu and an outdoor studies lesson was conducted at Tartu Lille Maja,” commented the coordinator of MISA Maria Ratassepp.

“The teachers considered the fact that the training format enabled them to exchange ideas and best practices with colleagues in addition to gaining new knowledge as the greatest value of both of the projects organised by the universities,” Ratassepp added.

As a result of passing the in-service training, teachers are better prepared to support students whose native language and cultural background are other than the language of instruction in adapting in general education schools and have more knowledge of the methods for teaching Estonian as a second language as well as the skills to advise subject teachers in this matter, if necessary.

The in-service training of teachers was supported by the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals and the Ministry of Culture via the Integration and Migration Foundation.

Additional information about the training organised by the University of Tartu: Maria Ratassepp, coordinator of MISA, e-mail maria.ratassepp@meis.ee ; further information about the training organised by Tallinn University is provided by Marina Mõškova, Finance Manager of MISA, phone: 659 9845; e-mail marina.myshkova@meis.ee

Last year 64 Estonians returned to their home country with the support of MISA

The Our People Integration and Migration Foundation (MISA) allocated a total of 56,590 euros in assistance to 64 Estonians or Estonian citizens returning to the country in 2014. As a comparison, last year MISA allocated assistance to 97 people of Estonian origin in the amount of 75,000 euros.

The objective of the support is to help compensate the expenses related to returning as well as facilitate adapting in Estonia. The primary conditions for applying for financial support are the person living abroad for at least 10 years and socioeconomic justification. The support can be applied for within 6 months as of actually returning to Estonia.

MISA has been supporting the return of ethnic Estonians and Estonian citizens from abroad to their home country since 1992. Needs-based assistance is also received through MISA by third country nationals who wish to waive their Estonian residence permit, leave Estonia and return to their home country.

Last year MISA allocated remigration support in the amount of 11,100 euros to 21 foreigners who were living in Estonia on the basis of a residence permit. Remigration or emigration support can be applied for by third country nationals (not citizens of the European Union or a Member State of the European Economic Area) who have lived in Estonia for at least 10 years, decided to voluntarily waive their Estonian residence permit and leave for their country of origin or to another country.

MISA will also be providing free consultation of migration-related issues within its competence to everyone in 2015.

For further information, please contact: Ion Braga, Consultant, phone: 659 9034, e-mail ion.braga@meis.ee

 

Updates to kutsekeel.ee portal
Belarusian fairytale-themed drawing competition opens
Youngsters to mark singer’s 95th birthday with festival

Updates to kutsekeel.ee portal

With the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation, the kutsekeel.ee portal has been updated with 40 worksheets contributing to the transition of vocational school teachers to Estonian-language teaching.

The portal centralises and manages materials designed for the teaching and learning of professional language and occupations. It is designed to collect and distribute links to (e-) teaching materials and to present the latest news from the field of professional language. In-service training was provided to teachers from institutions of vocational education, again with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation, as well as that of the Unique School Development Centre Foundation, which led to the worksheets being produced. The worksheets are designed for use by vocational teachers and teachers of Estonian and other subjects from vocational schools.

“The worksheets contain study tasks that help students whose mother tongue isn’t Estonian get a better handle on the subject they’re studying,” explained Liilika Raudhein, the coordinator of the Integration and Migration Foundation’s Implementation Centre. “The topics vary and include materials that cover a range of subjects, from specific professions to more general subjects.”

All 40 worksheets can be found here. 

Support for the preparation of the worksheets was given by the Ministry of Education and Research via the ‘In-service training for vocational school teachers’ project of the ‘Language Studies Development 2011-2013’ programme supported by the European Social Fund. The ‘Language Training Development 2011-2013’ programme was implemented by the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Liilika Raudhein, coordinator, Implementation Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9841 | E-mail: liilika.raudhein@meis.ee

Belarusian fairytale-themed drawing competition opens

Led by the EVA Studiorum learning and development centre and with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation, an international drawing competition has been launched based around the theme of Belarusian fairytales. Dedicated to 10 years of cooperation between Estonian and Belarusian schools, the competition – which is entitled ‘The Belarus of Fairytales’ – will see its most impressive entries turned into a travelling exhibition. Entries can be submitted until 20 March.

“The competition’s designed to contribute to the development of the artistic talent of youngsters from the ages of 5-18 with the help of Belarusian folk poetry and folklore,” explained Kristina Pirgop, an area manager with the Integration and Migration Foundation’s Development Centre. “We think drawing the colourful characters from Belarusian fairytales will broaden their horizons when it comes to the art and culture of the country.”

The best works from the competition will be rewarded with diplomas and prizes by a jury comprising Estonian artists and art experts. Outstanding illustrations will also appear in the pages of a collection of Belarusian fairytales being published by EVA Studiorum and form a travelling exhibition which will be held in both Tallinn (at the Russian Cultural Centre) and Minsk.

The ‘Sister schools’ project is being supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Niina Peerna | Mobile: +372 5197 5079 | E-mail: niina@evastudiorum.com;

Kristina Pirgop, area manager, Development Centre | Telephone: +372  659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee

Youngsters to mark singer’s 95th birthday with festival

An international festival and competition will be held in Tallinn from 11-14 February with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation to mark the 95th birthday of one of Estonia’s best known and most loved singers, Georg Ots.

Concert venues around the city will host the ‘Friendship’ festival, at which children from Estonia, Latvia, Russia and Kazakhstan will perform the songs and arias by Ots that have most inspired them. In this way they will be paying their respects to the talent and musical heritage of a man who was famous well beyond the borders of his homeland.

“It’s going to be a really exciting event, because it’s not often we get youngsters from somewhere as exotic as Kazakhstan performing the classics of Georg Ots!” said Kristina Pirgop, an area manager with the Integration and Migration Foundation’s Development Centre. “The concerts will also feature professional opera singers from Moscow, Rīga, Simkten and Tallinn and the ‘Fokstrott’ variety and symphony orchestra.”

‘Friendship’ festival and competition programme:

11 February 2015 at 18:00 – Hopner House (Raekoja plats 18, Tallinn)
12 February 2015 at 10:00 – ‘Friendship’ competition day at the Russian Cultural Centre (Mere pst 5, Tallinn) (invitation-only event)
12 February 2015 at 18:00 – Holy Spirit church (Pühavaimu 2, Tallinn)
14 February 2015 at 14:00 – Sõprus cinema (Vana-Posti 8, Tallinn)
14 February 2015 at 18:00 – Kadriorg Palace (A. Weizenbergi 37, Tallinn)

Tickets are available from Piletilevi sales points.

The event is being organised by the ‘Baltic Shore’ Union of Minority Nations and the NPO Un Canto. It is being supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact: Svetlana Šepilenko | Mobile: +372 5804 4180 | E-mail: balti.rand@gmail.com;

Kristina Pirgop, area manager, Development Centre | Telephone: +372  659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee

 

Dmitri Burnašev: Our foundation should be the competence centre for the integration field
Tallinn Sunday school celebrates Easter the Belarusian way
Integration Foundation helps teachers teach 
Tallinn University to organise stimulating media course for secondary school students

Dmitri Burnašev: Our foundation should be the competence centre for the integration field

In an interview for the April edition of the Integration Foundation’s newsletter, director Dmitri Burnašev talks about the course the foundation has set itself to even more effectively contribute to social cohesion in Estonia.

How has the Integration and Migration Foundation changed as an organisation this year?

We’ve had a new structure since the start of the year, and an updated strategy based on the development plan for integration. We’re aiming to be the recognised competence centre in the field of integration. We want to amass information and experience related to integration activities and to provide our own input in debates and discussions that have anything to do with the areas we work in. We’ve also created a functioning development centre for technical positions that deals with the development of the different areas of activity of the foundation. We’re now represented in Ida-Viru County, too – we have information and advisory centres in both Narva and our offices here in Tallinn, offering free consultations on integration issues. We’re mostly providing advice on options regarding work, education, social services, legal aid, welfare, health care, state support, language-learning, adaptation courses and applying for citizenship to people whose integration has been limited.

What changes in the way things are organised can the foundation’s partners and applicants expect?

Our restructuring will mean quite a few changes for our partners and applicants. For example, we’re now only accepting project applications via the web environment we’ve set up for that purpose, and we’re hoping it’ll soon be possible to submit reports to us digitally as well. That will streamline the way we work even more. It’s important to us as well to reduce the burden of reporting our partners face, and to this end we’ll only be checking reports on a sample basis starting in the near future. On the whole we want our relationship with our partners and applicants to be closer-knit, because our goal is to be a personal and approachable partner, not just some bureaucratic machinery.

What are the priorities for the foundation in the short term?

We’ve mapped out the main areas in which we contribute to achieving the objectives set out in the development plan for integration – they’re civic education, support for national minority cultures, language and culture immersion, support for cooperation between people of different nationalities living in Estonia, management of integration-related information and contributing to the creation of a shared media space. We’ll also continue to advise people on migration issues and provide financial support for people coming back to Estonia and re-migration. We want everyone who lives in Estonia to feel like proper citizens of the country – both those who aren’t citizens yet and those who are but who want to become true citizens.

You can keep an eye on the latest competitions and procurements by subscribing to the Integration Foundation newsletter or following updates on the foundation’s website.

Tallinn Sunday school celebrates Easter the Belarusian way

The Belarusian Sunday school Praleska has been operating in Tallinn since 2011. It is designed to give the children of Belarusian families living in Estonia the chance to study the language and learn about the culture and traditions of their country of origin through games and dances. With the Orthodox Easter approaching, we thought we’d take a look at the exciting Easter traditions of Belarus and how the festival will be marked by the kids from Praleska.

Easter is known in Belarusian as Вялікдзень, which means ‘big day’. Even before Christianity was introduced to Belarus, Easter marked the start of work in the fields for spring, and Belarusians essentially recognised it as the start of the new year. There are a number of traditional ways in which Belarusians celebrate Easter: they bake special Easter bread, known as ‘kulich’; they paint and play games with eggs; and they dance traditional folk dances like the Metelitsa and Zaveinitsa. Another Easter custom, similar to that of carol singers at Christmas, is that of the ‘volochebniks’: men in groups of 8-10 going from door to door singing traditional songs.

This year Easter will be observed in Belarus on 12 April, while the Praleska Sunday school will be celebrating the first feast of spring the day before, on 11 April.  The kids will paint and play games with eggs, sing traditional songs based on spring-time work in the fields and learn to dance the Metelitsa.

“Easter is one of the most exciting times of the year for Belarusian kids,” said Pavel Marozau, the director of the Sunday school. “Ours learn something new about it every year, such as how Easter’s marked in Estonia, and the ways in which Estonian traditions differ from those of Belarus. What we do is dedicated to ensuring that kids with a Belarusian background who live in Estonia blend in well in society here but also preserve their roots.”

A range of interesting events is added to the Praleska programme every year to help local Belarusians maintain their national identity in Estonia.

More information about the events offered by the Sunday school can be found on its website at http://praleska.org/.

The activities of the Praleska Sunday school are supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact:

Kristina Pirgop, area manager, Development Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee

Pavel Marozau, director, Praleska Sunday school | Mobile: +372 5800 9188 | E-mail: pavel.mor@gmail.com

Integration Foundation helps teachers teach teachers

The first in-service training course for directors and teachers from national minority Sunday schools was held at Ovaalstuudio in Tallinn on 28 & 29 March, organised by the Integration and Migration Foundation. The structure of such courses has changed this year, with a new format being implemented: ‘teachers teaching teachers’. This gives the participants the chance to share their knowledge with their colleagues themselves.

Many of the Sunday schools that operate in Estonia have been doing so for more than a decade, meaning that long-serving teachers have plenty of experience to pass on to their peers. As such, the first training course saw them sharing their ideas on best practice in working with children from the ages of 3-7. The future plans of the Sunday schools and their role in Estonian society were also discussed, as were the values of the schools and the development of their teachers. As part of the course, Marje Sarapuu, a teacher of integrated subject and language studies, led a session on the teacher-student relationship.

The course was attended by 29 teachers and directors from 21 Sunday schools in Sillamäe, Tallinn, Haapsalu, Jõhvi, Pärnu, Tapa, Maardu and Valga.

“I really liked the new ‘teachers teaching teachers’ format,” said Roman Ljagu, director of the Russian Culture Sunday School in Tallinn. “ Getting the chance to share your experience with your colleagues is really useful. It gives you a boost, too, which is something you can always do with when you work in a Sunday school! The cosy venue was really inspiring as well and helped when it came to thinking about things.”

The Integration and Migration Foundation is supporting the activities of 23 Sunday schools in 2015 within the framework of the base financing of national minority Sunday schools.

Such Sunday schools provide children who live in Estonia but whose national roots lie in another country with the chance to learn the language and study the culture and traditions of that country.

For further information please contact: Kristina Pirgop, area manager, Development Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee

Tallinn University to organise stimulating media course for secondary school students

Tallinn University is set to launch a media studies course in four locations around Estonia for Estonian- and Russian-speaking secondary school students during which they will learn how to analyse media texts and how to make use of objective information channels from Estonia and around the world to obtain information.

The course will be held in Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu and Narva, led by experts from the field of communication. The students taking part will not only be able to attend lectures and contribute to group activities but also visit the offices of a range of media publications to meet with journalists and opinion leaders in person.

“The aim of the course is to provide students with necessary skills to analyse whether the information transmitted via media is objective,” said Natalja Kitam, the media relations maganger of MISA.

The organisation of the media studies course is being supported by the Ministry of Education and Research and the Integration and Migration Foundation.

For further information please contact:

Liilika Raudhein, coordinator, Implementation Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9841 | E-mail: liilika.raudhein@meis.ee

Valeria Mihhailova, project manager | Mobile: +372 5559 5632 | E-mail: valeria1mihhailova@gmail.com

 

Application round for Estonian language and culture studies in families and camps to open in May
Integration Foundation supports projects for development of shared national identity in Estonia
Preparations underway for Estonian-language training of teachers from Ida-Viru County
Cultural integration seminar held in Narva
Series of events showcasing Ukrainian arts to be held in May

Application round for Estonian language and culture studies in families and camps to open in May

The Integration and Migration Foundation awaits applications for the organisation of Estonian language and culture studies for young people aged 7-19 in project camps and within families.

“This summer and autumn we’re hoping to offer at least 20 youngsters the chance to practise their Estonian while staying with an Estonian-speaking family,” explained Jana Tondi, an area manager from the Development Centre. “Our experience is that there’s always a lot of interest in language and cultural studies within families, and demand is always high. Not only does it give the kids a chance to hone their language skills and take part in joint activities, but they often also make real friends who keep in touch even after the week they spend together as part of the project.”

Tondi added that applications are also open for the organisation of Estonian language and culture studies at six-day camps for at least 20 young people. “Our aim is for the camp programme to offer those attending them a range of interesting and useful activities that support non-formal Estonian language learning – whether that’s sports, art, culture or handicrafts,” she said.

The project is aimed at young people in the 7-19 age bracket for them to practise Estonian in a non-formal environment. The budget for the competition is 20,221 euros. The deadline for the submission of projects is 25 May 2015. For those interested in applying, an information event will be held from 11:00-13:00 on 18 May at the foundation’s offices at Lõõtsa 2a, Tallinn (8th floor). Please register in advance for the event by e-mailing jana.tondi@meis.ee.

More information about the terms and conditions of the competition and the required documentation can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation.

Organisation of the competition is being supported from the state budget via the Ministry of Culture.

The contact person for the competition is Jana Tondi – telephone: +372 659 9069 / e-mail: jana.tondi@meis.ee.

Integration Foundation supports projects for development of shared national identity in Estonia

The Integration and Migration Foundation has launched a project competition entitled ‘Development of a shared national identity and promotion of Estonian citizenship and human rights’.

“The competition’s open to projects that help shape a shared national identity, endorse Estonian citizenship and recognise human rights,” explained Liilika Raudhein, a coordinator from the Implementation Centre. “They should also support and promote the equal treatment of people from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. For example, we’ll be financing projects that foster cooperation and networking between organisations that focus on equal treatment and that contribute to the integration of the young adults living in Estonia who speak Estonian and other languages.”

Raudhein gave digital platforms, training events, conferences and roundtables supporting integration as examples of projects that could receive funding, adding that analysis and studies were also eligible.

Applications are open to legal entities registered in Estonia. The total budget for the competition is 21,500 euros. The deadline for applications is 19 May 2015.

For those interested in applying, an information day will be held at 11:00 on 12 May at the foundation’s offices at Lõõtsa 2a, Tallinn. The event will focus on the terms and conditions of the competition. Please register for the event by e-mailing liilika.raudhein@meis.ee. The competition guidelines and terms and conditions can be found on the Integration Foundation website.

The competition is being financed from the state budget via the Ministry of Culture.

For further information, please contact: Liilika Raudhein, coordinator, Implementation Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9841 | E-mail: liilika.raudhein@meis.ee.

Preparations underway for Estonian-language training of teachers from Ida-Viru County

The Integration and Migration Foundation is to organise Estonian language training at the B2 and C1 levels for 195 teachers in Ida-Viru County between August 2015 and March 2016.

“Given the on-going need for such training, we’ve been working with the Ministry of Education and Research and the Language Inspectorate to look for ways of improving teachers’ Estonian skills,” explained Jana Tondi, an area manager from the Development Centre. “We’re really happy that our plans are working out. The ministry has the resources needed to support Estonian courses for 195 teachers from pre-schools, general schools and vocational schools in Ida-Viru County. Discussions are happening in Narva and Jõhvi at the moment to determine their needs and wishes, and we’ll be making a start on putting the groups together soon.”

The language courses will be divided up into 15 groups, with classes being held twice weekly. There will also be intensive training days, lasting up to six hours each, twice a month. There will be tests before and after each course, and a level exam will be taken by each participant during the training period (in either November 2015 or February 2016).

Language courses for pre-school teachers will be held in Narva (three groups), Sillamäe (one group) and Kohtla-Järve (two groups). Courses for general school teachers will be held in Narva (three groups), Sillamäe (one group), Jõhvi (one group) and Kohtla-Järve (one group). Courses for vocational school teachers will be held in Narva (one group), Sillamäe (one group) and Jõhvi (one group).

The aim is for up to 80% or 156 of the teachers who complete the course to have passed their level exam by spring 2016. The Integration Foundation will launch a public procurement in May to find a service provider for the language courses. Training events for the language trainers are planned to be held in June. The foundation itself will be responsible for finding suitable venues, organising catering and appointing trainers. Estonian language training is financed by the Ministry of Education and Research via the state budget.

For further information please contact:
Jana Tondi
Area manager, Development Centre
Integration and Migration Foundation
Telephone: +372 659 9069
E-mail: Jana.Tondi@meis.ee

Cultural integration seminar held in Narva

The Narva office of the Integration and Migration Foundation at the Keres Centre played host to a cultural integration seminar on 21 April which showcased the activities of the ESF programme and the current areas of operation of the foundation and which discussed best practice.
The day was opened by mayor of Narva Eduard East, who encouraged the attendees to think more about the issue and to talk about local problems. Dmitri Burnašev, the director of the Integration Foundation, outlined the new structure and growing capabilities of the foundation and shared his thoughts on the ability of Estonian society at present to address integration issues. 

Jana Tondi, an area manager with the Integration Foundation, talked about the main language and cultural immersion activities related to the ESF programme for 2015 and also led a think tank on locals’ vision of the most needed activities in terms of practising non-formal language studies today.

During the second half of the day, Kätlin Kõverik from the advisory centre outlined the advisory services that the Integration Foundation provides, including the need for such services, what they actually involve and existing and planned services. She also asked those present to share their own advice regarding the types of advisory services most likely to be of interest to and needed by locals.

Also taking part in the seminar was Evelin Koppel, a representative of the Archimedes Foundation’s Youth Agency, who spoke about the ‘Youth meetings’ pilot project launched this year. The project aims to foster communication, understanding and development among young people aged 11-16 who live in Estonia but speak different languages.
As the day came to a close, Natalja Kitam, the area manager for media with the Integration Foundation, shared information about key media and cooperation activities planned for 2015 in regard to integration. She also offered the attendees practical tips on dealing with the media.

The day was summed up by Aleksandr Aidarov, an adviser from the Cultural Diversity Department of the Ministry of Culture. He highlighted the most interesting proposals made during the day’s discussions, such as tandem study opportunities, non-formal language and cultural immersion clubs for adults and the creation of interest-based groups and opportunities for cooperation for young people so as to support language studies, which locals need and are interested in.

The seminar was held within the framework of the language and cultural immersion sub-activity of the ‘Development and provision of an integration programme’ activity of the ‘Activities supporting integration in Estonian society’ ESF programme.

Series of events showcasing Ukrainian arts to be held in May

The Association of Ukrainian Organisations in Estonia will be overseeing a number of events in May which will offer everyone interested the chance to find out more about the works of Ukrainian collectives in a variety of artistic fields.

The Ukrainian cultural education society Prosvita invites everyone to a special concert in the Kaja cultural centre in Mustamäe on 16 May. Admission is free of charge.

From 29-31 May the Association of Ukrainian Organisations in Estonia will be hosting the international ‘Ukrainian Flowers 2015’ creative festival for children and young adults in Tallinn. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the festival. The organisers are inviting anyone interested to come along and watch or even take part as children take to the stage as artists and heroes from Ukrainian stories, make traditional Ukrainian dolls known as motankas and showcase their own art works to visitors.

All collectives whose repertoires include Ukrainian national art are welcome to present it at the event. Registration is open until 20 May by e-mailing ukrainaoae@gmail.com.

Festival programme

29 May

 • 13:30 – Official opening

Venue: Mustjõe Secondary School (Paldiski mnt 38, Tallinn). Admission is free of charge.

30 May

 • 11:00-12:00 – Song masterclass
 • 12:30-13:30 – Motanka doll workshop

Venue: Mustjõe Secondary School (Paldiski mnt 38, Tallinn). Admission is free of charge.

 • 18:00 – Gala concert
Venue: Lindakivi Cultural Centre (Koorti 22, Tallinn). Admission is free of charge.

For further information please contact:
Vladimir Palamar | Telephone: +372 600 6768 | E-mail: ukrainaoae@gmail.com | Website: http://www.uoae.ee/.

Kristina Pirgop, area manager, Development Centre | Telephone: +372 659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee.
 

Interview with foundation stalwart Toivo Sikk
Procurement for the organisation of A2, B1 and B2 Estonian courses to be held in June
Sunday school teachers can now apply for support for in-service training
Marianna Drozdova joins Integration Foundation as director of research
Results of integration monitoring study to be showcased in Tallinn and Narva
Pärnu-based Russian culture and language school to explore Pskov

Interview with foundation stalwart Toivo Sikk

Toivo Sikk has worked for the Integration and Migration Foundation for 14 years. He has watched it develop since the early years. He is the director – and outspoken champion – of activities in the foundation that are directed at youngsters. He knows everything there is to know about Estonian schools and school life and has done much over the years to support young people in the country growing up to become true citizens. In May he celebrated his 60th birthday.

1.     Where were you born, where did you grow up, and where did you go to school?

I was born in Valga and spent my entire childhood and school years there, perched on the border between Estonia and Latvia. I spent most of my summers in Ala, a village in Helme municipality in Valga County, where my grandparents lived, and sometimes in Laanemetsa as well. During my summer breaks I worked on the state farm at Taagepera in the beetroot and turnip fields, weeded spruce and pine plantations for my local forest management district, did a bit of hod-carrying in Ritsu and helped my uncle out with his metalwork. I graduated from school in 1973 and went straight on to study automation and telemechanics at TPI. I became even more interested in the subjects when I got a job in the automation lab there.

2.     Where did you work before you joined the Integration Foundation, and what as?

In 1978, after I’d graduated from TPI, I found a position in the Special Construction Bureau of the Estonian Research Institute of Agriculture as an engineer. By the end of the year I’d already been promoted to senior engineer. In 1980 I was elected vice-secretary of the Harju Regional Board of the Communist Youth Organisation of Estonia, then I worked as an instructor on its Central Committee, then I was elected secretary, and in 1983 and 1984 I worked in the Organisation Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Organisation of the Soviet Union, overseeing the work of the Young Communist League in four regions in Ukraine. It was in 1984 that I started to have more to do with kids and practical youth work and managing youth work-related areas when I was elected secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Organisation of Estonia. For the next five years I was responsible for kids from rural and working-class backgrounds, youth science and sport, Sputnik [the international tourist agency for young people], youth publications – magazines like Täheke, Pioneer, Noorus and Vikerkaar and newspapers like Säde, Noorte Hääl and Молодёжь Эстонии – and the activities of the Estonian University Students Construction Brigade. In 1988 I started working on the principles of a national youth work policy, and developing and launching it became my main focus from 1990 onwards – first in the Ministry of Education of the Estonian SSR, where I was the head of the sector dealing with the youth work programme and later the director of the Youth Work and Hobby Education Department. I also managed the Youth Work and Sports Department for a year, and after that, right up until the 30th of June, 2001, the Youth Work Department of the Ministry of Education and Research. The intervening years saw the adoption and entry into force of a lot of acts that were needed to regulate the lives of kids – the Child Protection Act, the Hobby Schools Act, the Juvenile Sanctions Act, the Youth Work Act and both the Estonian Youth Work Concept and the Estonian Youth Work Development Plan for 2001-2004. I was also involved in the training programme that was launched for youth workers at what was then Tallinn Pedagogical School [now the Pedagogical College of Tallinn University] in 1992 and in training kids between 1992 and 2003.

3.     How and when did you find yourself working for the Integration Foundation, and in what position?

I joined it, back when it was still called the Foundation for the Integration of Non-Estonians, thanks to its director at the time, Mati Luik, and a series of coincidences. When the Ministry of Education and Research relocated to Tartu in 2001, it was decided that integration-based stuff would be left up to the foundation. So Mati suggested to me that I set up an Educational Programme Centre within the foundation, and that’s where I started, along with one other full-time person and one part-timer.

4.     Looking back at your 14 years with the foundation, what’s drawn you to your work, what is it about it that you like?

Over the years I’ve always found myself surrounded by great colleagues, and many of the people running the projects have been fantastic, too. Enthusiastic, dedicated, happy to work with you. When I started working in integration the team we had was comparatively small, but you could always rely on the people at the foundation. I’d gained a lot of experience in the work I’d done before, but integration as a field was new to me and presented a lot of challenges, since there were quite a few areas where I really was starting from nothing. 

I’ve managed teams myself, or been on management boards managing teams, so I know how important it is to have a good atmosphere and positive thinking where you work, from the point of view of making what you do worthwhile.

5.     What’s been the most memorable or most important event for you personally in all the years you’ve worked for the foundation?

The first thing that springs to mind is the winter retreat we kicked off 2002 with. It was our first one, and we had it in Kurgjärve. It was a training event, essentially, but with the seminars broken up by skiing and skating. We later added a summer retreat, too. Events like that made us gel as a team – we bonded, really – and shaped the foundation as well.

Another thing I remember goes to show how simple and seemingly ordinary things can turn out to be really important in integration terms. In 2010, students from Pähklimäe Secondary School in Narva [a Russian-language school] were involved in a project that was being funded through the EIF programme, and one of the events was an excursion for school kids to Saaremaa. For one of the boys who went on the excursion it was the first time he’d been outside of Ida-Viru County, and after he’d been across on the ferry, tried the island food, seen what the island was like, experienced the island culture and talked to the people there he said: “Estonia’s so big! There’s so much interesting stuff here! I’ll gladly live here!” A change had come over him in three days that textbooks hadn’t been able to effect in eight years. What people see and hear has far more of an impact on them than we think.

And from that we can conclude that you’ll never make somewhere feel like home to anyone just by getting them to read about it – they have to experience it for themselves. That’s why we run civic-themed projects in the foundation that give kids and young people between the ages of 7 and 26 a chance to see Estonia for themselves and really appreciate the beauty and magic of the place. And they don’t simply take part in the projects as onlookers – they’re the ones who put the projects together, who bring them to life and who pass on the experience they take away from them. What’s most important is that the emotional experience is something that stays with them for years. It’s not something they forget quickly.

6.     How has the field of integration in Estonia developed in your view? Has it developed? What do you think we have to be proud of? What do we need to change and improve? What do we need to focus more on?

We had a thing at Salme Cultural Centre in March 2008 to mark the foundation’s 10th anniversary which brought together a whole load of people involved in integration. The fact so many of them turned up cemented the conviction I had that it’s an issue people really care about and that it’s not the taboo it once was. The word itself has become an everyday part of the language, and people have realised that we need to hold a steady course, not swing about from one extreme to another.

Integration’s something Estonians need, too. Estonians need to be integrated so that they understand people from other countries. And you’ve got to provide people from other countries who’ve come to Estonia with advice and training, and practical workshops on Estonian history and culture, so they don’t feel like outsiders here but blend in with society and be part of it. Although to do that they themselves have to put in the effort as well – learning Estonian and finding out about our culture and customs.

7.     What do you think will be the big moment in 2015 that will allow you to say it was a successful year or not when you look back on it?

The main event for me this year will undoubtedly be the youth conference we’re organising for the first time on the 30th of October. It’s designed to get young people living in Estonia contributing to a debate we’ve called ‘What we can do to make Estonia a better place’. We want to bring the younger generation to the frontline of social development. To make them realise that if you want to get up front in society and do great things you have to seriously invest in what you know and soak up all the experience you can.

The other big thing’s our annual Citizens Day quiz, which will take place at some point between the 23rd of November and the 4th of December. We’ve been organising it for school kids since 2003, and in that time more than 50,000 have taken part. Between 7000 and 8000 per year in the last couple of years, in fact. We also have the annual Citizens Day essay competition for kids in Grades 7 to 12 at ordinary schools and kids at vocational schools, and that should be taking place this year from the 12th to the 30th of October. 

Procurement for the organisation of A2, B1 and B2 Estonian courses to be held in June

A procurement is to be launched in early June as part of the ‘Activities supporting integration in Estonian society’ programme with the aim of providing Estonian language courses at the A2, B1 and B2 levels for permanent residents of and newly arrived immigrants to the country with limited skills in the official language.

The courses are designed to developed people’s skills in Estonian, broadening their general vocabulary and providing them with practical exercises on everyday topics which will help them make more use of Estonian in their studies, at work and in ordinary conversation and communication.The training courses at the beginner and intermediate levels (A2, B1 and B2) will be held between 1 August 2015 and 31 December 2016. Each course will last for 80-100 academic hours.The aim is to offer language training to at least 540 residents of Estonia and new immigrants who speak another mother tongue, come from another cultural background and have insufficient skills in the official language.

The ‘Activities supporting integration in Estonian society’ programme is financed by the European Social Fund.Information about the procurement can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation. Registration for the courses will be via the Integration Foundation website until 30 August 2015.

It is also recommended to take a look at the foundation’s training materials at http://www.meis.ee/raamatukogu and http://www.kutsekeel.ee/ or http://www.meis.ee/kohanemisprogramm.

For further information please contact: Jana Tondi | Telephone: +372 659 9069 | E-mail: jana.tondi@meis.ee.

Sunday school teachers can now apply for support for in-service training

As part of a competition, teachers from national minority Sunday schools can now apply for support for participation in in-service training at a university and/or institute of higher education in teaching in their historical homeland.

The aim of the competition, which is being conducted by the Integration and Migration Foundation, is to support the in-service training of teachers from national minority Sunday schools in their historical homeland. The study and travel costs related to the in-service training will be supported as part of the competition.

The competition is open to Sunday schools to which the Integration Foundation has granted support in at least two of the last three academic years (2012/2013, 2013/2014 and 2014/2015) via the application round for the base financing of national minority Sunday schools.

The deadline for the submission of applications is 29 June 2015.

An information day outlining the details of the competition will be held from 11:00-13:00 on 11 June at the foundation’s offices at Lõõtsa 2A, Tallinn. Please register in advance for the information day by e-mailing kristina.pirgop@meis.ee.

Further details about the competition can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation. The competition is being financed from the state budget via the Ministry of Education and Research.The budget for the competition is 12,516 euros.

For further information please contact: Kristina Pirgop | Telephone: +372 659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee.

Marianna Drozdova joins Integration Foundation as director of research

Joining the Integration and Migration Foundation in the last week of May as its new director of research was Marianna Drozdova, whose tasks will be the organisation and performance of analyses and studies in the field of integration. She will also oversee the organisation and analysis of data collection.

“Over the years the foundation’s built up a significant amount of experience of working with a wide range of people and organisations in the integration field, and it continues to play an important role in implementing activities in support of integration processes,” she said. “For me it’s an exciting challenge to get the chance to build up a system that brings together the multifaceted practical activities of the foundation with research-based analysis and which will give us a continuous overview of what’s happening in the integration field.”

Marianna has a BA in psychology from the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tartu, majoring in public administration, and an MSc from its Institute of Psychology. She is currently completing her doctorate at the university in political science.

Marianna is a junior researcher at the Institute of Political Science of Tallinn University, where she has been working for the last two years on an international research project whose aim is to determine the preconditions for the context of inclusive integration. She has contributed to a number of research projects in the integration field – for example, the International and Social Studies Institute project ‘Study of social groups in the field of integration’. Her expertise was also sought in the drafting of the cultural policy document ‘Culture 2020’ within the field of cultural diversity and in developing the background information for the area of ‘Involvement and inclusion’ of the ‘Integrating Estonian 2020’ programme devised by Ernst&Young and commissioned by the Ministry of Culture. She has previously worked as a member of the board and project manager of an association in the non-profit sector and as a trainer and consultant in a number of organisations, such as Vain&Partnerid, Invicta AS, the Archimedes foundation and the NPO Eesti Väitlusselts. Her most recent duties have been connected to the international political science and sociology magazine Studies of Transition States and Societies, on which she was the editor-in-chief.

Marianna’s contact details can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation.

Results of integration monitoring study to be showcased in Tallinn and Narva

The ‘Monitoring of the integration of Estonian society 2015’ report, the sixth of its kind, has been completed. It seeks answers to a range of questions regarding language space, economic inequality, the labour market, enterprise, education, participation in social life and trust in state institutions. The monitoring is an independent detailed study of the integration field commissioned by the Ministry of Culture which is conducted every three to four years. This year’s study was drafted by experts from the Institute of Baltic Studies, Tallinn University and the Praxis Centre for Policy Studies.

Representatives of organisations linked to the field of integration and anyone else interested is invited to attend two events at which the results will be made public and to participate in the discussions that follow.

The events will be held in Tallinn at 14:00 on Tuesday 16 June (in the conference centre of the Tondiraba Ice Rink in Lasnamäe, Varraku 14) and in Narva at 11:00 on Friday 19 June (in auditorium no. 200 at Narva College, Raekoja plats 2).

Speaking at the events will be the researchers behind the monitoring and representatives of the Ministry of Culture.

For further information and registration please contact: Martin Jaško, director of communications for the study | Mobile: +372 50 52 568 | E-mail: martin@peegelpartnerid.ee.

Pärnu-based Russian culture and language school to explore Pskov

Students and teachers from the ‘Järelaitaja’ study and development centre for Russian language and culture in Pärnu will be going on an excursion to Russia in June which will showcase the historical and cultural heritage of the city of Pskov and surrounds.

During the excursion the children will find out about Pskov’s historical and cultural heritage, its traditional and cultural values, the history of the ancient city of Izborsk, the nature of Russian culture and the historical role of Orthodox art. Many renowned people hail from Pskov – musicians and composers, artists and poets, writers and literary experts, architects and philosophers – all of whom have made outstanding contributions to Russian and world culture. One of the key events during the trip will be a visit to the Pskovo-Pechersky Dormition Monastery, which has a special place in the history of Russian Orthodox culture.

The students will find out about the history of the monastery, both its past and present, and visit its famous ‘God-given caves’, which form a unique monument in art history – a necropolis. The excursion is being held with the support of the Integration and Migration Foundation and the Ministry of Education and Research.

For further information please contact: Natalia Rafikova | Mobile: +372 5597 8839 | E-mail: nar2311@rambler.ruKristina Pirgop | Telephone: +372 659 9024 | E-mail: kristina.pirgop@meis.ee.

Jana Tondi: Specialist in language and culture studies with the Integration Foundation
Summer language and culture café events await residents of Narva
Summer concerts and events of national minority cultural associations
Knowledge of Estonia tested at Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Centre

Jana Tondi: Specialist in language and culture studies with the Integration Foundation

31 May 2015 marked five years of working at the Integration and Migration Foundation for Jana Tondi, whose background in education and practical language-teaching – working and communicating with both children and adults – makes her a valued and much-needed member of the foundation’s team, and to its partners.

We interviewed Jana to find out where she learned what she knows, what she did before she joined the foundation and what inspires her most in her work.

1. Where are you from? Where did you grow up and go to school?

I was born in Pärnu, but ever since I’ve lived in Vigala. We’ve always spoken two languages at home – Estonian and Russian. That’s why I feel justified in saying I’m from a multicultural family! I started school in Kivi-Vigala and then went on to Pärnu-Jaagupi High School. My school years coincided with the era when you were taught a profession in high school, which is why I started selling food products after I graduated; the skills I’d learnt also meant I was capable of selling industrial goods, too. It was an interesting time in my life – working in a shop meant my summers weren’t always spent weeding vegetable patches and making jam and planting cucumbers and sorting the hay out.

After I graduated from high school I went on to study what was my strongest subject: Russian language and literature, which I loved and which I was always interested in. I wanted to learn more about it. In basic school I’d wanted to become a teacher. In the end I combined the two, graduating from Tallinn Pedagogical University in Russian Language and Literature in 1992 with a teaching degree.

My first job was right there at the university, working in the Russian Language Department. I really liked it as a place to work. It was while I was there that I started doing my Master’s by correspondence. I did all sorts of courses as part of that.

2. What did you do before you joined the Integration Foundation?

I was working at the Narva College of the University of Tartu. In 1993 I was headhunted to teach Estonian at Narva College,  when became the Narva College of the University of Tartu in 1999. At first I carried on teaching practical Estonian to the students there, and I was also teaching it in a basic school, to get a better idea of how learnt and teachable methodology are actually applied in lessons; what works and what doesn’t. I wanted to get some idea of how much material you could get through in a lesson, how kids attain language, how motivated they are and what interests or doesn’t interest them. In any case I soon worked out that my lesson plans had too much going on in them, so I adjusted them accordingly.

Between 2001 and 2009 I was more involved in the administrative side of things – I was organising open university studies, then I became the director of the General Department and in latter years I took up the post of overall director of the college. It was an interesting time, the time I spent in Narva, and quite demanding. I kept finding myself in new roles and having to put myself to the test, learning or experiencing something new pretty much every year.

People would tell wild stories about Narva, but in reality, living and working there, you never saw or felt anything of the sort. What was important was that you knew how to speak to the people there, and I was good at that. That helped hone my Russian, of course, which was much better after I graduated than it is now! On the other hand, so many people wanted to learn Estonian that I was basically teaching it out of hours as well, doing in-company stuff or working for a language company.

3. How and when did you find your way to the Integration Foundation?

I saw an advertisement in 2010, a job vacancy, for a coordinator in the Lifelong Learning Unit, and I thought: why not give it a try? Send in your CV and see how it goes. I’d submitted proposals and applications to the foundation before on behalf of the college to try and get funding for extra language studies for our students, so I was curious as to what went on at the other end – who reviewed our applications? What did they do? I had an interview at the foundation and was then called back for a second one, and after that it was Eduard Odinets, the director of the Lifelong Learning Unit (now working as an external resources expert with the Ministry of Culture – Ed.), who told me the job was mine if I wanted it! I did, and I took up the post in mid-2010. That’s when my journey of discovery started! The first area I worked in was coordinating Estonian lessons for public sector workers, then Estonian lessons for university and college students as part of the ‘Language Studies Development 2007-2010’ and ‘Language Studies Development 2011-2013’ programmes of the ESF (European Social Fund – Ed.) , and since the end of 2013 I’ve been involved in offering Estonian studies in the sphere of vocational education as well.

4. What’s been the most memorable or most important event for you personally in the time you’ve worked for the foundation?

There’ve been lots of memorable moments, since every year I’ve faced new challenges and had a new focus; I’ve never felt like I’ve been stuck in a rut. The end of 2010 was particularly busy, because I’d joined the foundation in the second half of the year and had to hit the ground running, picking things up as I went and starting things and seeing them through all in a short space of time. I managed though, and I was really happy with what I’d pulled off! So was the whole unit, in fact.

2011 was an exciting year, because that’s when the new programme started and this huge field sort of opened out in front of us. Somewhere between 80 and 120 companies and organisations were taking part in our application rounds each year. The number of people interested in language studies was really high. The sad thing was that we had to say ‘no’ to a lot of places, since the resources we were working with were limited.

2013 was something of a breakthrough year for me, since it was that March that I was offered the post of director of the Multicultural Education Unit. I didn’t have to think for too long before accepting it! The work of the unit and the area it operates in were close to my heart, and I was familiar with both – non-formal language and culture studies, projects promoting civic education, culture and sports projects, work with youngsters (including camps and other joint activities) and interaction with Sunday schools and national culture associations. I was also involved in projects connected to the EIF (European Integration Fund for Third Country Nationals – Ed.). There were four of us in the unit, and the atmosphere was always great. We thought along the same lines and we were always willing to help one another out. Working there was fantastic.

That October I agreed to help wind up the activities of the ‘Language Studies Development 2011-2013’ programme and take on the responsibilities of the programme manager. In 2014 I fulfilled the role of director of the Lifelong Learning and Multicultural Education Unit. I’m sure this year will go down as one of new roles and challenges, too. Now I’m the director of culture and language immersion and both what I do and how I go about it have changed. Society’s expectations have changed as well. There’s still a lot of interest in and need for Estonian studies among people who don’t speak it as a mother tongue, which is reflected in the huge number who’ve registered for the free Estonian courses we’re offering at the moment – almost 5000 people.

5. What do you get up to outside of work? What helps you relax and unwind?

I spend a lot of time with my sisters’ kids. Playing with them really relaxes me. They’re so open and so genuine about everything. They have a way of drawing every bit of attention to themselves!

I love going mushrooming and berry-picking in the forest, and jogging in the park, and skiing in winter. I haven’t been to any shaping classes since I’ve been in Tallinn, but I did go to them in Narva. Sometimes I read, or knit, and I go to cultural events every now and again. I love making cakes, and talking to my friends. And working in the garden! I spend every weekend in the country, at my dad’s place.

Part of my holidays I always try to spend exploring somewhere new that I’ve never been to before. Some of the most exciting places I’ve been to are Crete, Brazil and Thailand.

6. How has the field of integration in Estonia developed in your view? Has it developed? What do you think we have to be proud of? What do we need to change and improve? What do we need to focus more on?

Of course it’s developed, over time. Integration’s constantly evolving and changing with society; as society develops, so does integration. It doesn’t tread water. The results of the latest integration monitoring, which was carried out this year, were presented in June, and they showed that compared to 2011 the proportion of people who can’t speak Estonian has decreased and the number who can has increased. Active use of the language has increased significantly among young people, to as much as 63% – that’s a rise of 16% since last time. We’re seeing the same sort of shifts among older people as well. The study also showed that Estonian’s being used a lot more in studies and in talking to colleagues, as well as in recreational situations and hobbies.

I was really pleased with those results, and I am proud of them. I’ve contributed to quite a few goals being met, like equal opportunities for competing on the labour market and obtaining education, including Estonian language studies, finding contacts and shaping attitudes. We all have – my colleagues at the foundation, and our partners.

We’ve also supported Estonian studies for both young people and adults on traditional language courses, in language clubs, at meetings, through cooperation initiatives and at kids’ and other project-based camps.

Since the field has needed some fine-tuning, I think we’ve taken things in the right direction. In future though I think we’ll need to turn more attention to the content and quality of what we do – by which I mean getting to know the language and the culture – and offer more opportunities for people to create contacts and do things together. That way we should reinforce the feeling among everyone who lives in Estonia that this is their community, this is their country.

We have to focus more on integrating the two biggest cultural groups here in Estonia. That’s something that people who speak Estonian as their native language can get involved in, too. I’m of the view that Estonians need to be integrated as well so that they understand people from other countries and the diversity of the cultures that exist within Estonian society. Our cultural space is actually really rich and it’s because of that diversity. For example, Estonia has its own cultural groups – the islanders in the west, the Setos in the south – and they’re really strongly connected to their linguistic and cultural heritage and identity. But without knowing their customs and their traditions, even Estonians will be a stranger among them. And apart from them there are almost 190 different nationalities living in Estonia, from almost 90 different countries. Different cultural backgrounds and cultural experiences and expectations can lead to misunderstandings and conflicts between people. It’s important to know other cultures so as to better understand your own, and shape your understanding of yourself.

I think language and culture activities help people who don’t speak Estonian as a mother tongue improve their Estonian language skills and gain a better understanding of Estonian culture. It also leads them to play more of a part in it. And all of this boosts people’s language abilities generally, and their social skills, which in turn contributes to breaking down social barriers and creating conditions for people to break through on the labour market.

7. What’s been the high point of the year for you so far, at work and at home? And when you look back on the year as it comes to an end and consider whether it was a successful one, what will decide it for you?

I should dig out the list of new year’s resolutions I made at the end of last year, I guess – see what I’ve already done and what’s left to tick off! That way I’d have more idea of what I still want to achieve, or what’s already coming along nicely, or what’s fallen by the wayside. We’re only halfway through the year yet, so I hope I get the chance to do everything I’ve planned to at work, and also focus more on my life at home.

One of the biggest things will be in autumn, when the language courses and language clubs will be starting up. This year marks five years for me with the foundation, which is a nice little number, and I suppose an achievement of sorts! If nothing else it tells me that I’m doing something that I’m good at and that I care about.

 

 

Summer language and culture café events await residents of Narva

The Narva office of the Integration and Migration Foundation at the Keres Centre has been playing host to weekly language and culture café get-togethers since May.  These events, which are educational and informative but also social, will be taking place all summer. The dates and themes of the July and August meetings can be found below.

Language café programme
 

• 13 July (17:00-18:00) The magic of numbers | ‘I know your family’ game | Interesting experiences connected with numbers (Boosting people’s numbers vocabulary)
• 27 July (17:00-18:00) My family are the best! (Boosting people’s family-related vocabulary)
• 10 August (17:00-18:00) Happiness – life’s greatest achievement | Do I know how to give myself praise? (Boosting people’s vocabulary related to life stories, behaviour and characterising people)
• 24 August (17:00-18:00) Is your job your life’s calling? (Boosting people’s work-related vocabulary)

Culture café programme
 

• 8 July (16:00-17:00) Jazz in Estonia – the history of jazz in this little Baltic country | 90th anniversary of The Murphy Band – the first professional jazz band in the country and their first ever performance at the Marcelle dance-café | 70th anniversary of The Mickeys big band
• 22 July (16:00-17:00) The Birgitta Festival – its history and programme for 2015
• 5 August (16:00-17:00) Lea Dali Lion’s Joonista valgus /Draw the light/ – the Estonian bestseller in June | Discussion: Spiritual strength and life experience | Why do we read such books?
• 19 August (16:00-17:00) What are the Free Stage and Independent Dance Stage? Why were they created, and who for.

Language and culture café events take place at the Narva office of the Integration Foundation on the 3rd floor of the Keres Centre (Kerese 3, Narva). Tea and coffee are provided for attendees. Feel free to brings snacks with you. The themes of the café events are updated regularly on the website of the Integration Foundation.

For further information e-mail info@integratsiooniinfo.ee or call +372 800 9999.

 

 

Summer concerts and events of national minority cultural associations

Summer is a time for travelling, meeting new people and taking part in a wide range of exciting events.

Below you will find information about the events being organised by national minority cultural associations this summer.

JULY
 

• 11 July (19:00) The NPO Varnja Perekonna Selts is organising the annual Fisherman’s Day in Varnja village. The programme includes a concert, and traditional fish soup will be made for all.
• 13-31 July The Union of Russian Education and Charity Associations in Estonia and the Russian Philharmonic Society are organising the Alion Baltic International Music Festival for the second year running. It will feature performances from Russian, Germany, American and Serbian pianists, violin players and vocalists.
• 14 July(10:00) The festival will be opened at the Russian Cultural Centre. Pianist Daniel Pollak from the United States will be giving a solo performance at 19:00.

AUGUST
 

• 3 August(18:00) Youngsters from the Estonian-Russian Chamber of Culture are organising a concert at the Lindakivi Cultural Centre which will feature a performance by the ancient Russian folk music group Rusichi.
• 15 August(20:00) The vocal ensemble Orthodox Singers will perform at the Church of St Mary in Jõelähtme.
• 15 August (from 15:00) Various groups from the Pärnu Open Centre and Pärnu County cultural centres will perform as part of the August Insomnia Festival in the courtyard of Pärnu Community Centre (Lõuna 18). There will also be performers from Finland. The centre will simultaneously host an exhibition of national handicrafts. 
• 15 & 16 August The Union of National Minorities is organising ‘Multicultural Pärnu 2015’ as part of the Raduga Festival, including:

• 15 August– performances by national minority troupes from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia; tasting of national cuisine; an exhibition of the works of national minority societies; and a dance troupe and visitor flash mob; and 
• 16 August– a dance workshop led by the Chuvash Cultural Society from St Petersburg; and an introduction to Russian cuisine by the Chuvash Cultural Society from Tallinn.

 

 

Knowledge of Estonia tested at Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Centre

Anyone can play Eesti mäng, the educational and entertaining quiz show known to viewers of ETV. This was proven by first-year students from Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Centre, who held their own version of the quiz show at the school in June.

The rules were simple: in turns, the teams were asked questions on six subjects and had to choose the correct answer from the multiple-choice options given. All of the subjects were related to Estonia – the state; history; culture; nature & geography; sport; and miscellaneous. Five teams took part, each featuring one native speaker of Estonian and three students with Russian as their mother tongue. A total of 20 first-year students competed in the game.

According to the organisers, what appealed most to those taking part was the chance the quiz gave them to put themselves to the test and learn something new in a fun format. “It was great rolling the giant wooden die, which was pretty heavy, so that spurred the youngsters on to roll it further and further in hopes of a higher number of points,” said Signe Abel, the organiser of the event and a technology studies teacher at the Ida-Viru County Vocational Education Centre. “The party afterwards was great as well, as it gave all of us – those taking part and those of us who’d organised it – the chance to try some of the very best traditional and contemporary Estonian dishes.”

The organisers were very pleased with the fact that the game took place simultaneously in two formats: live and online. The Internet version will be able to be used later in lessons. All of those who took part received an Estonia-shaped badge as a memento.

The quiz took place online at http://teemenii.planet.ee/index.php, established by the school’s creativity teacher Olga Popova.
The first three teams to complete the game were rewarded with baseball caps and scarves featuring Estonian emblems and mugs emblazoned with patterns from national costumes. All of the competitors received a badge and a letter of thanks for participating.

The event was able to be held thanks to the activities of the ‘My home is in Estonia’ project of the ‘Civic awareness- and tolerance-themed events and materials’ project competition organised by the Integration and Migration Foundation, funded from the state budget via the Ministry of Education and Research. Two such events are to be held during the term of the project. 

 

Kätlin Kõverik: Managing integration-based advisory services from the heart
Head of Cooperation joins Integration Foundation team
Integration Foundation to hold information day for language trainers in Narva in August
Media project set to consolidate integration news

Kätlin Kõverik: Managing integration-based advisory services from the heart

There are only a handful of people in Estonia working in the field of integration, but those who come into contact with it find themselves drawn back to it time and again. So it is with Kätlin Kõverik, a senior advisor at the Integration and Migration Foundation’s advisory services centre and the woman in charge of the centre’s work – after 10 years away, she’s back working for the foundation.

And that, of course, is a very good thing: experience and knowledge of the field are values in their own right. What Kätlin was doing in the meantime, what she enjoys doing in her free time and what her thoughts are on integration issues are all discussed in the following interview.

   1. Where are you from? Where did you grow up and go to school?

I was born and went to school in Tallinn, from kindergarten to university. From Grade 1 to the end of high school I went to what, in Estonian terms, was a perfectly ordinary school – the former Tallinn High School no. 20 on Pärnu Highway.

After high school I went on to tertiary studies, first in the Faculty of Economics at what’s now Tallinn University of Technology, then specialising in administrative management. It was a new area of study for TUT at the time and was only just taking shape.

I spent quite a few summers during my childhood staying with relatives on Saaremaa, in the bosom of nature, as they say! Even now when I’m on holiday or have any free time I like to spend as much of it as I can in nature.

   2. What did you do before you joined the Integration Foundation?

While I was at university I was part of the AIESEC youth organisation, which was behind a number of projects. I also worked as a volunteer for an organisation called ‘People to People’ – in 1997 and 1998 I helped organise a cultural game for young Russian and Estonian speakers during which I paid a number of visits to places in Ida-Viru County and came into real contact with the integration field. The  idea of the game, which was all about cultural exchange, was for the players to understand – in a fun way – the feelings and fears that people have, whatever their age or cultural background, when they’re suddenly confronted with another cultural space. 

I joined the Integration Foundation in 1999 and after that spent a few years working on labour market issues in the Unemployment Fund and the Labour Market Board. I spent a few years living abroad, too. I worked in Finland. I was involved in implementing and developing projects related to inclusion and health communication.

   3. How and when did you find your way to the Integration Foundation?

For me this is Round 2 in the foundation, if you like! As I mentioned before, I first joined the foundation in 1999, as a project assistant, and later I was a project manager. I worked here for six years altogether. I’ve been back now since March, managing the advisory services centre and steering its development.

   4. What do you get up to outside of work? What helps you relax and unwind?

The most important thing to me is being with nice people. Now that I’ve got a toddler at home there’s a different set of rules altogether when it comes to free time! My son always on the move – running around, riding his bike, even skiing – and I like all those things, too. Before he was born my hobby of choice, for years actually, was swimming – I had this thing that I had to swim at least one kilometre a minimum of a couple of times a week.

I’ve been doing handicrafts as a hobby since I was really young, as well. When I was playing with dolls I’d make clothes for them out of whatever materials I could find, and it developed from that, I suppose. I started making national folk costumes after I got my Master’s degree. At that point I’d started feeling a bit directionless in my life, so I wanted to try something new. I decided to enrol in a school where they teach you how to make national costumes. Since then I’ve made quite a few individual pieces and full outfits. I’ve given all the different techniques a try that making an outfit requires you to know – drawnwork, tablet weaving and the like. Lately I’ve been mostly focussing on tablet weaving– making belts with different patterns.

If I do get any free time I like to grab my rucksack and head out on day-long hikes, in Estonia or abroad. I love stormy seas, as well. I go and watch them churning away to remind myself how powerful nature is and that we’re just one small part of it.

   5. How has the field of integration in Estonia developed in your view? Has it developed? What do you think we have to be proud of? What do we need to change and improve? What do we need to focus more on?

The way I see it, it’s important that integration isn’t hidden away between other areas but is a free-standing programme in its own right. Some very important and on-going progress has been made in all sorts of areas within the integration field, like the base financing of national culture associations and mechanisms that support Estonian language studies for both immigrants and long-term residents. We have well-functioning cooperation networks, too; I’m not sure enough importance is attached to them, really. Through them information spreads, experience is exchanged and citizens are involved and informed.

It gets to me sometimes that integration is still treated like piecework, one project at a time. It doesn’t work like that in any country, and nor should it. It’s a long-term, on-going process you have to work at constantly. Every area has to develop, and you can’t put a deadline on that – it’s a lifelong thing.

It’s unfair to say that integration has failed. Just as society comes on, so do the groups within it. Integration can be viewed like a business – like in production, where there’s product development, constant updating and adoption of improved solutions, there’s development in society and in national policies. That’s why you can’t look at integration as an activity with a fixed start and end date: it changes all the time, according to need.

   6. What’s been the high point of the year so far for you, at work and at home? And when you look back on the year as it comes to an end and consider whether it was a successful one, what will decide it for you?

In terms of work one of my definite goals is to make the advisory services the foundation offers as user-friendly and high-quality as possible, and to make sure they really support people when they’re adapting to life here. We’re making big strides in that direction. At the moment people have somewhere to come to if they have questions or problems related to settling in and where they can get answers and find out how to go about things better while living here.

In my personal life the highlight of the year so far has of course been coming back to Estonia! I’ve spent time living abroad, adapting to life there, getting by there, and now I’ve come back and I have to try and fit in here again. I had no problems in Finland, but Estonia’s where I want to be.

Head of Cooperation joins Integration Foundation team

Joining the ranks of the Integration and Migration Foundation in the last week of July was a new Head of Cooperation. Natalia Reppo, who was selected for the position, will take charge of cooperation activities in Estonia designed for people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

Natalia has a Master’s degree in Estonian as a foreign language from the University of Tartu. She has also taken part in the ‘Youth to School’ programme, undergoing training in management and teaching skills, and worked at the Juhkentali Upper Secondary School in Tallinn as a teacher of Estonian as a foreign language.

From 2008-2013 Natalia worked at the Integration Foundation as a coordinator, implementing the activities of the Estonian Integration Plan for that period. This she did by organising a variety of competitions and procurements, managing their activities and providing later monitoring. She headed up a number of projects, including language training for directors and teachers from educational institutions and a summer school.

In November 2013 Natalia joined the Estonian Youth Work Centre, where she worked until re-joining the Integration Foundation as a specialist on children and youth at risk as part of the 2009-2014 programme of the European Economic Area.

Natalia’s contact details can be found on the website of the Integration Foundation.

Integration Foundation to hold information day for language trainers in Narva in August

Prior to the commencement of the B2 and C1 Estonian language training courses for teachers from Ida-Viru County in the second half of August, the Integration Foundation is working with the Ministry of Education and Research to organise an information day for those who will be attending the courses. The aim of the event is to explain to the participants in more detail the goals and expected results of the training.

A procurement organised by the Integration Foundation came to a successful conclusion in late July when Algus OÜ was awarded the contract to provide language training for 195 teachers from Ida-Viru County. In connection with these courses, an information day will be held in rooms on the 1st floor of the Narva City Government building from 11:00-16:00 on 13 August. Piret Kärtner, the director of the Language Department of the Ministry of Education and Research, and the department’s deputy director Riina Koolmeister will outline the content, aims and hoped-for outcomes of the courses, which are due to start in the second half of the month.

“During the day we’ll be going over organisational issues related to the courses and asking the participants for proposals on how we can organise the training more effectively and so that we can achieve the results we want,” explained Jana Tondi, head of linguistic and cultural immersion with the Integration Foundation. “We’ll also be taking a look at best practice in language training for adults and training by teachers for teachers, and reviewing the most common mistakes made in exams.”

The language courses are being provided for teachers from kindergartens, general education schools and vocational schools. They will be held in 15 groups in Narva, Sillamäe, Kohtla-Järve and Jõhvi. Exams will be taken before and after the course. During the training period each participant will also have to take an exam to determine their level of proficiency. The aim is for up to 80% or 156 of the teachers who complete the course to have passed their level exam by spring 2016.

Estonian language training is financed by the Ministry of Education and Research via the state budget.

For further information please contact:

Jana Tondi
Head of Development Centre
Integration and Migration Foundation
E-mail: jana.tondi@meis.ee
Telephone: +372 659 9069

Media project set to consolidate integration news

From July through to the end of December this year the NPO Etnoweb will be carrying out a media project entitled ‘Lõvi’ /Lion/ for Estonian- and Russian-speaking audiences. The service, which was commissioned by the Integration and Migration Foundation, aims to bring together and distribute news regarding national minority culture associations, social cohesion, youth work, education and cultural life via the project’s media channels – the Etnoweb, the Postimees newspaper, the television channel ETV+ and the Kultuuriinfo portal.

The main goals of the project are the development of the cooperation network for communication within the field of integration and the generation and distribution of related news to a wider audience. Etnoweb is also involving the civic press in the process of compiling the news, as well as the youngsters who took part in the ‘Our Media Generation’ training event which was held under the aegis of the Integration Foundation in spring this year. Contributing to the distribution of the news are the project’s media partners: Postimees, Kultuuriinfo and, starting in autumn, ETV+.

Project manager Valeria Mihhailova says the project aims to make information about the activities and events (cultural and otherwise) of a range of organisations and civic initiatives more available to the Estonian- and Russian-speaking populations of the country. “Often we don’t know anything about the great and really interesting events and initiatives that are happening right where we live, since information about them never reaches us, or there’s not enough of it, or it’s not in a language we understand,” she remarked. “The need to provide consistent integration-based information’s also come about because civic associations and smaller organisations frequently lack the resources or skills to inform people of their events and activities that are aimed at the general public.”

Hundreds of civic associations, organisations and educational institutions all over Estonia have the chance to contribute to the creation of this collective information field. Anyone who needs or wishes to provide or distribute news should get in touch with the project’s coordinators and editors by e-mailing lovi@integratsiooniinfo.ee. Etnoweb is also issuing a weekly newsletter summarising the most important news published in the preceding seven days. You can subscribe to the Estonian- and Russian-language versions online at http://etnoweb.ee/JoinBroadcast.aspx. The ‘Development of the communication cooperation network of the integration field and distribution of news’ project is being supported by the Integration and Migration Foundation via the Ministry of Culture from the state budget.

For further information please contact:

Valeria Mihhailova, Project Manager, Etnoweb | E-mail: moderator@etnoweb.ee | Mobile: +372 5559 5632
Ruslan Prohhorenko, Project Coordinator, Integration Foundation | E-mail: ruslan.prohhorenko@meis.ee | Telephone: +372 659 9035

Dear prospective student,

Thank you for registering for the A2, B1 or B2 Estonian course on the Integration Foundation website.

These courses will be starting this autumn as part of the ‘Activities supporting integration in Estonian society’ project of the European Social Fund. The first 540 people will be commencing their studies in September. The free courses are planned to continue at regular intervals, with the first additional groups being put together before the end of the year. For our part we’ll do our best to ensure that everyone who is interested in and has registered for the courses gets the chance to take them.

Since interest has been much higher than anticipated, we are planning to offer places on courses for a further 2000 people (starting from January 2016.) in addition to the groups starting this September. The same number of places will then be offered again in 2017. If needed, even more places will be made available so as to guarantee that everyone who registers on the Integration Foundation website and whose language level is A1 gets the chance to undertake free Estonian studies.

In order for us to be able to start teaching the first groups later this month, we have been working with the training company to draw up the list of the 540 people to be accepted onto the courses. Since there were far more people interested in taking part, we had to allocate places based on the order in which people registered. The training company – an NPO by the name of Atlasnet – will be contacting everyone who has been accepted onto the September courses via the e-mail address or telephone number indicated on the registration forms. We thank everyone in advance who missed out on this first round of courses for their patience.

Those who were not accepted onto the September courses will certainly be informed about future language-learning opportunities, and also alerted straight away if a place on a course that matches their language level and place of residence becomes free.

We have also added extra information to our website for everyone who has applied for the courses. You will find an FAQ that should provide all the answers you need, whether you will shortly be commencing your studies or have to wait a while longer to start. Information has also been provided about other study options. You can find all of this information here. To keep yourself up to date on what is going on in the field of integration, you can also subscribe to our newsletter.

Thank you for your understanding. We hope to be able to provide you with the Estonian language training you need very soon.

Regards,
Dmitri Burnašev
Director, Integration and Migration Foundation

Information on integration issues is available from
the Counselling Centre of the Integration and Migration Foundation
Telephone: 800 9999
E-mail: info@integratsiooniinfo.ee