Learn. This is the word that comes with us our whole life. Since we are small, barely speaking, until when we are retiring. Is in this constant learning cycle that Brazilian Experience believes in the exchange between international interns, that can contribute to a new world vision full of possibilities.

The student of Social Sciences and Social Psycology of the University of Eastern Finland, Ella Lukkari came to Brazil trhough BE for  professional internship at CEJUSC of Ponta Grossa. One of the activities developed by the student of the NGO Riku was a lecture on the Methods used in Finland to support victims in psychological, medical, legal and social aspects that were involved in the violence case. Member of the Public Defendence of Paraná of Ponta Grossa went to the event.

The result of the conference was that the European model, with strategies of informing the victim during all the judicial process, will be installed at CEJUSC with the name of “Eu com verso”. This new form of action considers that legal, financial and psychological support is fundamental for the overcoming of the incident.

Ella Lukkari

Ella Lukkari arrived in Brazil at the beginning of December 2018 and stayed here until the end of March 2019. Her main interest when she arrived was to identify the similarities and differences between the social systems of support in Brazil and in Finland. When she arrived in Brazil, she already had been working with victim support for 4 years.

Months afters her return to Finland, she discussed with BE team about the experience and her impressions once she returned home.

Brazilian Experience (BE): How do you feel your internship placement contributed to a change in your view of the world?

Ella Lukkari: I fell in love with Brazil, the culture, people, nature, everything. It was my first time in South America and I`m definitely going to travel there again! So this experience kind of extended my view of the word and made me very curious about almost completely unknown continent.

Brazil is very different country and the society and the problems there are much bigger than in Finland. This experience made me more passionated to work with themes like poverty and unequality.

BE: How did you feel the difference between the work environment of Brazil and Finland?

Ella: The working environment in Brazil is little bit more easy going and flexible. People in Brazil are the most kindest and friendliest people I have ever met, so the work environment was much more nicer of course! People in Brazil really appreciate other peoples effort and the co-workers are very supportive.

In my opinion in Finland we are little bit more reserved and we are shy to try new things, especially when it is about working with people. In Brazil I felt more confident to bring up my ideas and thoughts. I also liked the way how people use a lot of metaphoras and creativity in Brazil in such an unique way! This type of approach was something I wanted to bring with me to Finland too.

BE: Here, you taught about the methods used in Finland, during the evaluation you told me about the different approach used in Brazil, could you talk a little bit more about them and how you were influenced by the “mixture” of both?

Ella: There are little bit different methods used in restorative justice in Finland and in Brazil and I learned a lot about method called ”circle”. Also in Brazil people use mediation and restorative justice for many different situations, but in Finland we use it usually only for certain type of crimes and conflicts.

Also there were many cultural differences that I noticed while working with people. For example, In Finland, it’s not very common to speak about things like religion, but in Brazil it’s a very common and normal topic and people who are facing hard times are using religion as an effective method to get through the difficult times (for example the death of a loved one).

BE: You mentioned to us you were uncertain about what you would do back in Finland and talked about taking different courses after your Master’s. I’m curious, did you do/will you do that?

Ella: Yes! I`m going to study more courses on criminology! After my internship, I became very curious about restorative justice and I hope I could become a mediator one day!

Be: What part of your experience that you are most grateful for?

Ella: I`m most grateful for my co-workers Glaucia and Paloma, because they were very supportive, professional and enthusiastic people and they helped me with everything I needed. I became a very good friend with them, and we are still keeping in touch and Palomar even invited me to her weddings where I am definitely going in 2020!

I’m also grateful for my internship placement, because it was so interesting and I had an opportunity to participate in the meetings with the clients and talk with so many local people with different problems, and I had the opportunity to try to help them.

I’m also very grateful that the project I started together with Glaucia for crime victims (Eu com verso) is still existing and going okay, and I have the possibility to still continue to work with Glaucia and exchange some materials, thoughts and ideas about this theme online.