Our Story

Fenix ​​Finland was founded in March 2022 by an initiative of a group of specialists responding to the refugee crisis evoked by the war in Ukraine and focusing at those forcibly relocated people who have been arriving in Finland. The founders are professionals of mental health sector, mainly with experience in mental and social support, who speak Russian and/or Ukrainian as mother tongue.

 

We condemn in the strongest possible terms Russia's military operation in Ukraine. At the moment we see Ukrainian refugees as our main target group, but in the future, we plan expanding our services and professional network to start providing free psychosocial support to representatives of also other linguistic minorities, who reside in Finland and find themselves in a crisis situation, in their native languages.

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The main resource of our organization are volunteers, each of whom has gone through their own immigration and adaptation experiences. Our volunteer specialists undergo additional professional training in working with war trauma, and receive necessary support from supervising colleagues.

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During the first year of our work, by the effort of 40 volunteers, Fenix Finland has helped hundreds of Ukrainians in Finland. These is a concise list of our main activities over the past 12 months:

 

• Over 300 individual consultations online

 

• 14 online streams of the "Support INSIDE" program for stabilizing and improving the emotional state, in which more than 200 Ukrainians have participated

 

• Several face-to-face art therapy group sessions for children and adolescents, as well as a number of self-support groups for women

 

• Training sessions for specialists and volunteers working with war traumas, where ca. 100 people received knowledge on how to support people suffered by military operations while saving themselves from emotional burnout

 

• 16 live broadcasts with experts from various fields, where they highlighted current topics and answered questions of both Ukrainian refugees and local volunteers

 

• The "Adaptation in Finland" program developed for forcibly relocated persons with 3 face-to-face group sessions

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• Various events for children and teenagers in summer 2022, in which more than 100 people took part

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• Finland's first Class Act's "A Cool Play!" drama lab for teenagers, organized together with the Cultura foundation and Omapohja theatre

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• A number of "From Heart to heart" informal network meetings for Ukrainians in different cities

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• "Give Joy" Christmas charity and fundraising event organized together with the Ursuliinien sisarkunta Catholic parish and Crowd Collective Finland, for collecting gifts for Ukrainian children who were relocated to Finland due to the war

 

All the above has been achieved with the help of only 40 volunteers, who dedicated their time, effort and own finance for helping Ukrainian people in need, without any external funding.

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This year we were not unfortunately able to receive any funding or other help from the state, so we desperately need your support to continue our helping activities!

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• To become a member of the organization, please click here.

• To register as a volunteer, please follow here.

• To support our activities financially, please click here.

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If you have any proposals for cooperation, pleach reach out and let's talk!