Moniku is a novel service for multicultural families and parents of small children living in Espoo, Finland. I interviewed Alba, one of the project workers, to learn more about this wonderful new initiative.

What is Moniku? 

MONIKU is a service offered by the City of Espoo for multilingual pregnant mothers or families with children aged 0-6. In our meetings we talk about multilingualism, cultural pride, and we share useful information about family services and family friendly events in Espoo.

We can have our meetings in almost any language. If the family doesn’t fluently speak English or Finnish, we can book a translator for the meeting. This service is free of charge. In addition, we all Moniku counselors are mothers and have ourselves multilingual backgrounds, so this also helps us to understand in greater depth what are our client’s needs and feelings. A family can book an appointment with us though their nurse at Neuvola or by contacting us directly by phone or email. The families can decide if they want to meet us in the Neuvola or to have a phone or Skype meeting.

What is Moniku’s mission statement?

When families move to Finland and wish to integrate fast, they can sometimes forget their own roots and language. This can create problems not only in the language development of their children, but it can also prevent the growth of their own identity as individuals. Parents do not always have enough resources to keep their native language and culture alive at home, so Moniku service is here for that. We believe in cultural pride and we can offer the right tools and support to make it possible.

What kind of services do you provide?

Our focus is the child’s language development, and the well being of the child and his/her family. This is the reason why Moniku starts already during the pregnancy. During these meetings we help the expecting parents to create a plan for what language they want to teach to their children, how they will support their own roots in Finland, and to discuss what kind of social networks the parents have, if they need support.  After the baby is born, we will meet the families at least three times, when the child is 2, 6 and 10 months old. We also offer our services for children up to age 6.

Do you focus solely on secondary language development or do you offer a broader support to support cultural roots?

I always explain to the parents that culture and native language are two parts of a whole. If the child doesn’t grow up with a sense of belonging to the parent’s culture, at some point he will question himself and ask: why do I need to speak this language if we are in Finland? Here everybody speaks Finnish. To avoid this sort of rejection or identity crisis,

I recommend to the parents to be open about their culture with their children. For instance, to talk about childhood memories, to cook traditional food from their home country, to sing songs in their native language together, and to try to create special moments connected to their own culture while speaking their native language.  

Sometimes, I am able to find family friendly events or specific organizations in different languages and I share those with my clients or on our Facebook page.   

Is Moniku a permanent service of City of Espoo?

Yes, Moniku is a permanent service. We are available in several Neuvolas around Espoo. Our service is open from Monday to Friday 8-16. At the moment you can find us at Iso Omena, Kivenlahti, Tapiola, Espoon keskus, Kiltakallio, Suvela, Leppävaara, Kilonpuisto, and Perkkaa Neuvolas. If a family or mother is requesting Moniku but is not available at their own Neuvola, we can always receive them in our available Neuvolas or arrange a phone or Skype meeting.

Is Moniku for mothers only or for both parents?

The service is of course available for both parents and we encourage both parents to come to our meetings. It is very important they are on the same page when making a language plan for their children. In addition, if the family needs extra support we can also be a fast link to domestic services (kotipalvelu, more info here) or family counseling (perhetyö, more info here).

Can you share any success story?

It is hard to choose only one, but perhaps for me one of the best stories is about an Indian father married to a Finnish wife (for sake of privacy, the nationalities of the story have been changed). They had a small baby at the time I met them and had already an older child. The father had moved as a teenager to Finland and had some connection to his own roots and language, but he was very insecure about it. He didn’t really teach Hindi to his older child, and was now wondering if he should be doing the same with the baby. The wife was very supportive and always encouraged the husband to speak Hindi to their children, but he felt that Hindi was not as relevant as Finnish. After this, we started to talk about his life in India as a child, and all the good memories and connections he still had with his home country. When the meeting ended, I could feel that his attitude had changed. He was happy and left the room talking already in Hindi with the baby in his arms.

On our second meeting, he told me that all my advice had helped him a lot, and that nowadays they have more videocalls with their relatives in India, he started to read stories in Hindi (Espoo libraries have a great multilingual collection and reading is great to foster multilingualism, ed.), and slowly he was managing to change his language to Hindi every time he talked to his children. His older son was also excited about Hindi and was trying to learn it as well. Before our meeting the older child had shown no interest and refused even to try to speak the father’s native language. The mother was very also very grateful about this change in their life as a family.

In our last meeting, the father was speaking fluently Hindi with the baby, and actively trying to teach it to the older son. He said that our sessions had helped him to regain a part of himself that he thought was already lost. Finally, speaking Hindi had also improved the ties with the older son as well.

This is a small example of what Moniku service can do. We have so many successful stories like this one and hope to have many more in the years to come.

Could this service be suitable also for families who adopt internationally to Finland & are lost on how to support the child’s birth culture and/or language?

We focus on the native language development and mostly we support OPOL (one parent one language). Of course each family is different and we tailor different plans for each family. For example, if the mother speaks Italian and the father speaks Russian, we would recommend for each parent to speak their own native language when interacting with their child. The reason behind this is that a child needs to hear at least three hours a day of the native language to be able to learn it fluently. Also, it is easier for the child to separate languages if they come from different people.

Of course, in cases of adoption it could be supported differently, if the parents do not have a native level of the child’s home country language, perhaps the interaction could come from another source, such as friends from that specific country, or a caregiver. I would not recommend a parent with a basic level of Chinese to teach this language to an adopted Chinese child, because is not the emotional language of the parent, and therefore the child would end up not being able to express himself properly. On the other hand, if the parent would like to provide exposure to Chinese culture, even though is not the parent’s native culture, I would suggest that the parent approach this in a sensitive manner, so the child could feel like he is part of both the adopted parent’s roots, as well as his biological cultural background.

Do you also facilitate contact between parents or with other cultural organizations?

Yes, we do. At times, mothers share in our meeting that they feel lonely, they wish to meet new friends, have new activities to do with their children, or find courses for themselves etc. In these cases, we offer information about organizations that provide these services. Also, if the mothers feel insecure about going to these places alone, we can organize visits with them and go together. For us, the parents’ wellbeing is very important, because if the parents’ needs are met, so will be their children’s. Families can find us in Facebook or on City of Espoo’s website.

_{Featured image courtesy of Nappy.com.}