The Friendship Programme´s spring period begins – Would you like to have a Finnish friend?
New season of the Study in Turku -network´s Friendship Programme is about to start. The programme aims to connect the international students and local citizens and it offers an awesome possibility for international students to get in touch with the Finnish way of life.
Many international students lack contact with locals and daily life outside the academic world. Through the Friendship Programme, international students get to know the daily Finnish way of life as well as Turku as a city. The programme offers simultaneously an opportunity for Turku and nearby citizens to get to know a new culture and to add internationality in their lives without leaving their hometown.
Every international exchange, degree and doctoral student in the higher education institutions in Turku are warmly welcome to apply for the programme. Local friends can be almost anyone: people living alone, families, students or elderly citizens so that several situations of Finnish life are represented in the programme. International students can present some wishes of their future Finnish friends in order to match the best suitable people together. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that everyone can be matched with a friend nor that you can get exactly the kind of friend you wish, but we will do our best!
Shared activities with the local friend could mean anything from having coffee together to jogging or taking a trip to a museum to enjoy some art. We will offer each participant a free admission to one museum in Turku. We hope that this encourages the participants to get to know Turku together and to have an easy activity to plan.The programme period lasts from February to May. The period begins with an opening event on 23 February 2022 in which friends are paired with each other. The event is organized on the conditions of the pandemic situation. The programme is based on voluntariness and the friends can meet as much as they wish. However, we wish that the participants would commit to meeting at least once a month.
Apply now
The application period for the first programme period is now open until 14 February. Apply here and read more about the programme on the programme´s web page.