This article is based on an interview with Susanna Lehtovaara, a programme officer at JADE Activity Centre for elderly migrants located in Helsinki, Finland.

JADE is a meeting place that “promotes inclusion, participation, and wellbeing” of the ageing migrants by organizing weekly social, recreational, and educational activities and providing help with some of the practical obstacles that they might face living in Finland. The employees of JADE also raise awareness of the needs of elderly migrants through advocacy work and educate other social and health care workers.

How did it all start?

JADE is part of an organization called Käpyrinne ry, a non-profit association providing sheltered housing for the elderly. The operation leading to the JADE Activity Centre began over 10 years ago, when a group of nurses working there noticed a need for social support for Somali women, plenty of whom were suffering from loneliness, mainly leaving their homes only to attend mosques and Islamic centres.

The mission received its first project funding in 2013 and began with organizing sports, well-being activities, and group discussions. In 2018, the physical JADE centre was set up, serving as “an open place for encounters'' for elderly people (over 50 years old) with an immigrant background. Although the operation started in the Somalian language, it has since expanded to include activities in Arabic, Kurdish, Chinese, Persian/Farsi, and Dari (as well as in Finnish and English).

Although JADE has regular employees like Susanna, an important aspect of the activities are also its eager volunteers willing to offer their free time to support the values close to their heart. These helping hands, varying from 10 active ones to 30 in total, are responsible for organizing all types of fun, recreational group activities. With volunteering, JADE occasionally collaboration with schools to get volunteer groups for some projects/activities. According to Susanna, the most active volunteers, however, are in fact elderly themselves – which provides valuable peer support.

“It is also a great chance for JADE participants to get to know some Finnish elderly, something that does not happen easily otherwise, when one is already out of the working life,” she says.

Catering to a forgotten socio-demographic group

JADE’s mission is a reaction to the elderly migrants’ position as an overlooked group in the Finnish society: Susanna notes that elderly migrants in Finland do not have many places to go to for social support, and when retired, they may end up feeling really lonely. 

She explains that even though there are several service centers in the Capital Region offering recreational activities for the elderly, the language barrier makes it challenging for many people with a migrant background to get involved – especially if they lack in English skills.

Susanna points out that it is extremely important to provide group activities in participants’ own language, because that enables them to “offer information on Finnish services, but on the other hand, also hear what the elderly really need, and then spread the message forward into the society.” 

The fact that employees speak many of the participants’ native languages also makes it easier to reach people from the target groups and inform them about JADE. Another important way to attract new people is through the networks of the elderly migrants currently involved in JADE’s activity.

A place to socialize, recreate and learn

As a native Finnish person in her late twenties myself, the lives of elderly migrants are quite distant from mine, so I was curious to learn what type of motives and needs they usually have when joining JADE.

“Perhaps the most important thing is the communality,” Susanna tells me. “Often people think that foreigners [with the participants’ backgrounds] have large, tight-knit families, and that they have communal cultures – this is quite an easy prejudice. But when one has moved to Finland, not all the relatives are necessarily living in Finland, and the friendships might also have been left behind. They [the participants] often say that here in JADE, they have that social life.”

When it comes to connecting with others, JADE provides different options to include as many people as possible, to be inclusive. On one hand, they offer group activities for specific languages, so that even people with limited language skills can express themselves without limits and share their experiences with other native speakers. On the other, it is also important to provide chances for all people to connect across the cultural boundaries and learn from others; this is where the recreational activities step in.

Of course, people are also attracted by the activities themselves, which are extremely diverse: they range from crafts, cooking, and going to concerts or visiting museums to sports, games and being outdoors exploring the near surroundings - you name it. What is great is that the ideas do not only come from top-down, but JADE actively takes up wishes from the elderly. To top it off, almost all the activities are free of charge.

In addition to the social and peer support needs, the elderly migrants have also more technical and practical needs: for example, they might wish to have information on local health services due to the language barrier, or receive help when filling out forms. For this type of needs, JADE offers individual booked appointments and organizes events where participants can learn useful information about living in Finland, or staying healthy while ageing. 

Culture-sensitivity and shared values as guiding principles

When asked what to consider when you have people from several different backgrounds together, Susanna said the most important thing is JADE’s co-created guidelines which stem from “values such as respect for others, equality and listening”. 

She admits that when people come from various cultural backgrounds – often even within the same countries – there can be all sorts of things under the surface, and that this requires employees’ awareness and preparedness to intervene when needed. Despite this, she seems to be very positive about how things have been going. And, if something does come up, she says that people must simply be reminded of the shared values and ask themselves: ‘why are we all here’? 

The common principles are an important foundation, but Susanna mentions that the employees must also have “diversity know-how” that you could call culture-sensitivity – understanding that “even if we are seemingly different, we are still really similar as human beings.” This is why the employees at JADE also try to avoid using the term migrants and use elderly instead. “The backgrounds are very diverse, but we see the whole person and not just one part of them”, she sums up.

From “helping” to “empowering”

Even when people have lived in Finland for a long time and are integrated in theory, Susanna sees that they still feel like outsiders in the society when not fully understanding everything around them – she refers to this as ‘minority stress’.

For this reason, JADE plays a very important role in the elderly’s lives as a place where they can feel a sense of belonging; something that is also showcased by the elderly’s comments such as “Here we can breathe together”, and them referring to JADE as their “second home.”

The participating elderly also show a lot of gratitude towards JADE and its employees. “But when you dig a bit deeper, there is also a vast amount of wishes and needs”, Susanna says. JADE does not want to simply function as a place where elderly migrants are “helped”, but also as a place of empowerment that inspires them to be stronger, to spread the message, and perhaps also work as a volunteer themselves, helping others.

This is also the message that JADE workers want to bring into the wider society; on one hand, they want to raise awareness of an excluded group. At the same time, they do not want people to view them as weak and passive, but rather as active citizens with a lot of ideas and knowledge – potential that does not get fully realized in the Finnish society. 

Susanna hopes that JADE would be able to contribute as a channel for the elderly migrants’ “know-how, eagerness, and willingness to act”, encouraging their civic activism.

Best of luck to JADE in this mission! Let us hope that many organizations and people will follow their example – by trying to find ways to include the more neglected groups in the society and by learning to appreciate our similarities as human beings.


Psst. Do you know what kind of services there are in your home city for elderly people with a migrant background - especially the ones who do not (fluently) speak the local language? Let us know!

Words by Elina Pirhonen
All imagery to the courtesy of JADE