Alessandro's story

Hello,
I came to live in Finland in July 2017 for two main reasons:
- My half
- The fantastic culture based on trust

I came with huge expectations, but I could not taste this excitement when I arrived. I was ready to get the permanent permission to live in Finland and the Kela card. Unfortunately, it has been a tremendous route before I was able to get these rights. The queue for the immigration office was long two months and in order to be able to go before I had to travel 800 km in one day, to discover that I did not have all the documents needed.

Finished this first step I proceed to the maistratti, in which I have been able to finish the documents fastly. However, after the first migri office nightmare I had to face something more difficult and "scary", Kela. I have been in Kela 12 times in one month, documents were missing, more information were needed etc. etc.

At the same time that I was dealing with Kela, I was also in contact with the TE-Palvelut (the unemployment service). Same thing as in Kela, wait wait wait and hope hope hope.

I finally finished this process at the beginning of September. The worst thing for me was not going multiple times at the offices. The worst was the feeling of being ABANDONED.

I think that your idea is awesome and should be supported by the government. Because, fortunately I came here for love and I have people at my back. However, not everyone is lucky as me, if you escape war or other types of bad situations to come in Finland you need to have support, you need to know straight away what to do.

I thank you for your beautiful idea and I hope you will succeed as soon as possible.