Features
Ghanaian/African migrants in Finland and health issues
• African migrants in Finland are employed in jobs such as health
Today, I focus on Ghanaian/African migrants in Finland and health issues. Health is wealth, the saying goes.
Finland is committed to the integration of migrants into the Finnish society, as I keep pointing out.
A number of research studies from surveys and other in-depth enquiries have shown a trend of increasing efforts to integrate African and other migrants into the Finnish society.
As the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) has pointed out, health and wellbeing are an important part of integration of immigrants in Finland (see www.thl.fi).
Work and health
Most Ghanaian/African migrants in Finland work hard for their living. Like many other workers, the migrants are employed in various jobs such as in the technology and educational sectors as well as the cleaning, health, and entrepreneurship areas.
Also, most migrants are very active in the labour market and are gainfully employed as paid workers or as self-employed entrepreneurs, although they often have unstable or marginal positions in the Finnish labour market as cleaners, are happy to find a source of income to sustain them.
As experts point out, migrants travel with their health profiles; they encounter diseases as any other human does where they live.
Health and vulnerability
Health experts point out that migrant communities can be highly vulnerable to diseases, especially certain infectious diseases.
Experts say those who came to Finland as refugees or asylum seekers and their family members are often in a more vulnerable position in terms of their health (see www.thl.fi).
Research and media reports have shown in many countries that there are structural or societal/cultural factors that result in quite high rates of infection or ill-health among migrants, when compared with the majority population.
It is suggested that for example language barrier, lack of information, the nature of the work of migrants in professions where working from home is not possible (in the case of the Covid-19 pandemic), not accessing healthcare, etc. can present some of the factors for migrants’ vulnerability to diseases and infections.
Gender and health
Health issues about migrants also concern gender and how women and children can be highly vulnerable.
Thus, gender and health is one area that attracts attention about the efforts for migrants’ wellbeing as part of their integration into the Finnish society. It is an area where males and females can access healthcare equally, without any hindrances along gender lines.
It has been found that women report health problems more than men.
Migrant associations, information and social networks
Migrants associations have become important points for securing information and education about health issues, particularly among migrants. Such a situation was much evidenced among migrants during the corona virus situation.
Moreover, these associations and institutions become networks that create an important social capital as well as outlets for sharing and gaining information or knowledge.
Public agencies, migrant associations and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Finland have been publishing information to help educate people about preventing corona virus infections and other diseases.
Generally, migrant associations formally create awareness among their members and other migrants usually in collaboration with some Finnish institutions, and are thus an important tool for many migrants to be positively active and to get their interest and claims heard.
As I wrote previously, the role of migrant associations acting as bridge-builders for the integration and inclusion of migrants through participation in the decision making process and by acting as a representative voice is highly appreciated in Finland. Thank you!
One of the issues we have been grappling with as a nation is corruption, and it has had such a devastating effect on our national development. I have been convinced that until morality becomes the foundation upon which our governance system is built, we can never go forward as a nation.
Our traditional practices, which have shaped our cultural beliefs, have always espoused values that have kept us along the straight and the narrow and have preserved our societies since ancient times.
These are values that frown on negative habits like stealing, cheating, greediness, selfishness, etc. Our grandparents have told us stories of societies where stealing was regarded as so shameful that offenders, when caught, have on a number of instances committed suicide.
In fact, my mother told me of a story where a man who was living in the same village as her mother (my grandmother), after having been caught stealing a neighbour’s cockerel, out of shame committed suicide on a mango tree. Those were the days that shameful acts were an abomination.
Tegare worship, a traditional spiritual worship during which the spirit possesses the Tegare Priest and begins to reveal secrets, was one of the means by which the society upheld African values in the days of my grandmother and the early childhood days of my mother.
Those were the days when the fear of being killed by Tegare prevented people from engaging in anti-social vices. These days, people sleeping with other people’s wives are not uncommon.
These wrongful behaviour was not countenanced at all by Tegare. One was likely going to lose his life on days that Tegare operates, and so unhealthy habits like coveting your neighbour’s wife was a taboo.
Stealing of other people’s farm produce, for instance, could mean certain death or incapacitation of the whole or part of the body in the full glare of everybody. People realised that there were consequences for wrongdoing, and this went a long way to motivate the society to adhere to right values.
Imagine a President being sworn into office and whoever administers the oath says, “Please say this after me: I, Mr. …., do solemnly swear by God, the spirits of my ancestors and the spirits ruling in Ghana, that should I engage in corrupt acts, may I and my family become crippled, may madness become entrenched in my family, may incurable sicknesses and diseases be my portion and that of my family, both immediate and extended.”
Can you imagine a situation where a few weeks afterwards the President goes to engage in corrupt acts and we hear of his sudden demise or incapacitation and confessing that he engaged in corrupt acts before passing or before the incapacitation—and the effect it will have on his successor? I believe we have to critically examine this option to curb corruption.
My grandmother gave me an eyewitness account of one such encounter where a woman died instantly after the Tegare Priest had revealed a wrong attitude she had displayed during the performance on one of the days scheduled for Tegare spirit manifestation.
According to her story, the Priest, after he had been possessed by the spirit, declared that for what the woman had done, he would not forgive her and that he would kill. Instantly, according to my grandmother, the lady fell down suddenly and she died—just like what happened to Ananias and his wife Sapphira in Acts Chapter 5.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
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BY ROBERT EKOW GRIMMOND-THOMPSON
