Last week of school

Goodmorning!

So Noving starts the last week of school for this year, after this we are of on our internship for the whole month of May.

Last week is full of the last documentation work that has to be done for the year and preparation for the internship, man of us are going back to our hometowns for the internship so it is a lot moving aswell.

We will finnish of our last time together (for now) with a reflection on thursday and planning of the upcoming year and of friday we are going to Tallinn for a little last celebration for the ending of the schoolyear :)

Don´t worry, even though the schoolyear ends we will still keep the blogg updated with the latest stuff from Noving. ;)

Have a great spring and summer everybody!

Greetings

// Ian

Hello everyone!

Hi everyone, Ian here!

I haven´t done a blog post for a long time so I´m going to tell you a little bit where our teams is now and what we have been doing lately.

Let´s start off with some projects. We have done a lot of big projects lately together with TeamNoviabo and the Red Cross.

 We did a huge project togheter with TeamNoviabo in Pargas to improve the city center and to make to city more attractive and lively to the Pargas citizens as well as the tourist and the project ended up with great results and we are looking forward to see some changes in Pargas city in the upcoming years!

The Red Cross project was a little bit different then the other projects we have done. Team Noving was functioning as Instructors for the Red Cross program On the run, and the project went of in Dalsbruk for the elementary and highschool students in the city.

On the first day we got educated in our rolls that we would have during the game, and the second day we did the On the run from 7a.m to 8.30p.m. It was a very intensive two days in Dalsbruk but in the end it fell good to do something together with a bigger organisation and to get a look inside a world wide program and to be a part of it when it is put in practical use.

Other than the projects we have also arranged a trip for Team Noving to Tallinn for some quality time with the team, it has been kind of caotic these few couple of weeks so it will be nice to take som time of the work and get to do something fun for a change!

That was all from me this time, take care and lift heavy!

/ Ian

Leading a Moving Noving

I’m Noving’s current team leader for this spring. What this means is that I’m going in a team leading forum with other team leaders in Novia where we share our experiences in leadership, read relating literature and reflecting in how we could develop our leadership within our own team!

I’ve made a concrete teamleader-contract which says what my learning goal and achievements I'd like to develop in my leadership and what my concrete duties as a team leader are. These duties have also been decided with the team; the team has also came up with a few of the duties they expect from me as a leader. Few of my official duties that we have decided are:

·    Taking care/keep track of common deadlines

·    Make decisions when team is stamping on one place

·    Lead the team (obviously)

·    Be the week manager if the supposed one is sick

·    Try to find a solution when team is facing problem’s and dilemmas

Some of these tasks are the most concrete yet the smallest tasks I have...!

In the team leader contract, I’m supposed to make my goals measurable and concrete so I can after spring see black on white what went good and what didn’t. However, one of my biggest insights this spring has been that leadership is not always so concrete and measurable! There is not one way to be a leader that everybody sees and can say what exactly that leader is doing.

I’ve realized from this time as a leader that leading a team is very moveable and abstract. It’s about adjusting your leadership and methods towards the situation as it occurs, and sometimes these methods are not even official methods, but a way of being, a way of interacting.

With other words - Leadership is so much more than just managing. So far one of my feedbacks have been more like a manager – focused on tasks and results. It haven’t been all in waste, that was good for that moment – but the team is moving all the time, which means I can’t stand on one place and do the same drill, I have to move with them to see what’s needed for this moment.

So now I’ve been focusing on having inspirational and positive energy as a leader in order to inspire the team to fight these two last weeks of school before internship – which is not very measurable or result focused, but being motivated and feeling work-joy can give a lot of great result itself!

The rest if my very short time I have left of being a team leader, I’ll work a lot with myself so that I can keep that “moving leadership style”, not to get stuck on leading in a certain way, focused on certain thing, but to adjust, and really see where team is heading at… Where team Noving actually is heading at, we’re going to clear once and for all when we are creating team Novings common goal on this Thursday’s training session. To be continued…!

Happy & sunny greetings, Minerva :)

Inno58h!

Hi guys!

Regards from Kunstenniemi! I and ~50 other university students are here spending next three days innovating and brainstorming around assignments from different companies. You can go to our blog and Twitter and read there more about our client, Digita Oy and what we have been doing during last two months.


love,
Sanni

WAR in Roparnäs succeeded

At Sunday evening me, Veronika, Minerva and Dalle arrived in Björköby, Korsholm, where I grew up. We also stayed there during the 3 days we were in Ostrobothnia. We started planning for the project prosecution for the following day.

At Monday morning when we arrived to the classroom in Novia where we would be during the day, were there already students waiting for us.

We started off with a check in, where the students told about their mood and where they were from, since it was a multicultural group, we were interested to know. The group, NU12, was curious about what we were going to do and they were very polite.

When the real work started I kicked off with the communication workshop. The workshop was about actively listening, straight communication and how to handle conflicts in a group. Minerva, Veronika and Dalle filled me in if they also had a point with something I said or different examples. We helped each other J NU12 asked questions when they did not understand or wanted us to help them find a solution to their problem, if they had one. They gave us different examples and asked how to do in those kinds of cases. It was really interesting too for us, since they also said that they would not do it in that way that we suggested, because of the cultural differences. It was no big things, but still a difference, that was really interesting to see J

After lunch we started with the more interactive part of the day. We had a four corner value exercise. For each sentence that was read, the students went to a corner, whether they agreed, disagreed, did not know or had an own opinion. Then we discussed the issues and different values. We also had the articles of human rights with us and then the students were supposed to read an article and then have a discussion about it. There were of course many different opinions and the discussion and dialogue when really well. You could see a process from the previous workshop part set in motion already, which also showed us in the projectgroup that we did a good work! J in the check out NU12 told that they appreciated the workshop and left with a happy mood, so did we J

On Tuesday in the check in we found out that the students actually had more expectations than the precious day because it had been so informative, different and fun. Tuesday was reserved for projectwork. We introduced them to all the documents that we are using as tools in the projects and why these are good to know about and how to use them. NU12 got a little confused and there was some frustration, but in the end, the students came up with really nice ideas for a project to do during international nurses day(http://www.icn.ch/publications/2013-closing-the-gap-millennium-development-goals-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1/). Some of them wrote a group contract for their projectgroups and some even did do some more documentation.

NU12 really relied in us, which was also gaining trust for each other. Now we’re keeping in touch so we can help them with the project if they need any. And I am going to be there on international nurses day. We could see the process in their communication just the two days we were there and we are proud of the work we all did together :) 

Proud projectleader

julle *

All mixed up!

 
Last Thursday, for the celebration of the WAR, week against racism, (and just for fun)
we arranged a Multicultural Speed-date Evening in Kirjakahvila here in Turku.
The original plan was to reach as many people as possible, from as many cultural
backgrounds s possible.
It was lots of other parties too in Turku, so in the end, it were only few of us there. The range of nationalities was still: Finnish, French, Greekish and Chinese. So, quite a bunch of people.

Whereas immigration and refugee has grown during the last centuries, it has become easy to travel especially when you’re a student. It’s not a wonder if You hear someone behind You in the supermarket speak mandarin china or German. It's almost more common nowadays to have been a exchange-student than not to have been one. So we're globalizing also socially, and as it happens so fast, we may not have the time to actually think what we have in front of our eyes.

That is: our fellow men.

As I sat there tired of the tuff week, I suddenly realized again, how lucky I am.

To be able to spent time with these wonderful, open people, who don’t have a racist bone in their bodies. In fact, quite the opposite. And I'm learning something new, all the time, every minute! Totally free of charge! Now I know that men in China cant marry before their 22, that in France You can still smoke in public places, that Greek women think women in Finland behave against good manners when they speak "like men"... and well, you know. No huge revealing, but eye-openers to others everyday life.

And there we were, all mixed up. Our languages, traditions, and genes.

Under the very same sky, as all of the rest of the mankind.

 -Ninnu

W-A-R!

NO!  I'm not talking about an actual war with soldiers, guns and so on. I'm talking about the international event called "Week Against Racism". That week took place last week, week 12, and team Noving had been planning an eventful week to spread the word about this week and what it is all about.

We had the first project on Tuesday the 19th and that was an adventure with Human Rights as content and the Haavi boardmembers and laidies from Daisy Laidies as participants. The adventure took place in the forest in Ruissalo right outside the centre of Turku. The participants were divided into two groups and the groups were supposed to gather fifteen Human Rights each and give them to the Queen of the Forest. The tricky thing here was that there were bad people running around in the forest and these could come and take one or two Rights from the participants. All the Rights all came back in to safe hands of the Queen and the peace in the Forest was restored.
The praticipants liked the idea of participating in an adventure and they all went home with big smiles on their faces.

On Wednesday four people went to the swedishspeaking high school in Turku to educate second year students about racism through times. There was a brainstorming about what racism is and then there was a discussion about how racism have been seen through times. There was also a discussion about culture and religion, how these two can either create racism or how it can solve racismproblems around the world.
A valueexercise is always a good way to get the praticipants involved and a good way to get a discussion going. There were alot of different opinions and great discussions and we all would have liked to have more time to discuss about many topics.
The students said that this was very eye-opening and a good reminder for them.

Right after the high school-project half of our team went by bus to Dalsbruk to participate as volunteers in a project called "On the Run". This method is invented by the Red Cross and it is a 24 hour roleplay. The participants in this roleplay are refugees and they are under these 24 hours living the life that all the refugees in the world are living on a daily basis.
On Wednesday evening we participated in an education for all the volunteers who will take place in the roleplay. There was alot of information in a short while and we went to sleep on madresses on the schoolfloor with our brains struggling with itself because of all the info.
When we were in Dalsbruk the roleplay was only (!!) 12 hours because the participants were too young to handle the 24 hour-version.
The participants were running around in the forest, filling out papers that they maybe didn't understand, came to a countryboarder where the guards were not so nice and so on.
We, the members of team Noving, was playing roles like guards, pathleaders, hunters so we didn't have to live the life of refugees but we got to know alot about the process and the daily life of refugees around the world today.

Friday morning two of our team members went to a school in Tammisaari to hold interactive workshops about racism.

On our training session on Friday we had a feedback about this week as a whole and we are proud of what we have done to contribute to a society with less racism in it!

And we sincerely hope that something like this will become a yearly event that becoming Bachelor of Humanities develop into something bigger.

with alot of love from Dalle