The goal of the city’s immigration policy is to create a multi-cultural city. The foundation of Caisa is an important part of this policy. The idea was that Caisa would become a forum for attitude education and remove obstacles for positive contacts between the immigrants and the majority. At the same time, its purpose was to back up the internal integration of immigrants and become a place where immigrants and immigrants’ associations could congregate.

First the study analysed, by collecting comments from the public, how the concept of meeting place had worked out. The researchers also studied the minutes of the multi-cultural network that Caisa had headed and interviewed and questioned Caisas collaborators to find out what they had expected of it. The former manager of Caisa was interviewed.

City of Helsinki Urban Facts / Research series 2003:1.

Caisa has managed to create a more favourable public image of immigrants, and thereby possibly contributed to reducing prejudices and discrimination. The centre has been a meeting place and a channel for making foreign cultures better known to the majority. The centre has managed to bring together various actors, immigrants and Finns, associations and civil servants and made these exchange information and co-operate to develop the routines of immigrant work. To many immigrants, Caisa has provided an opportunity to get an inside view of a Finnish workplace.

But at the same time, Caisa has failed in the sense that it has not been able to fulfil its mission with the resources it originally was allocated. The centre has also failed in its co-operation with the mother office.

These ”failures”, however, have been beneficial in the sense that they have pointed at problems in the co-operation between the city’s offices and departments at large. And over the years, Caisa’s own goals have become clearer – not least through experience and mistakes, which is often the case when something new is introduced.

City of Helsinki Urban Facts
P.O. BOX 5500
FIN-00099 City of Helsinki
Finland
http://www.hel2.fi/tietokeskus
Ms. Tuula Joronen (Researcher), tel. + 358 403344783

12/02/2003

Tuula Joronen

research

Urban Policy > Social inclusion & integration > Community development

Mediation