Hej Anne and Karl.
Below are some of my reflections around the Bridge action plan. Please excuse the sometimes perhaps
“too direct” commentary, but in a sense, I am treating this like any project plan which I have assessed in
the past.
Thoughts on the presented action plan:
2.0 Action Plan
2.1 Introduction
General objectives are necessarily GENERAL, but it might serve to define some terms in the
objectives:
1) to ease the integration process for our target audience with supervision, information and
education through our front office activity.
Define what you mean by “supervision” also is everyone aware of the nature of your “front office
activity” and how this relates to easing integration?
2) for a change of attitude in employees regarding immigrants as jobholders, and also in
society in general.
Rephrase. Also “society in general” is too vague unless one can define what one means by this.
More precise language (goals) makes it easier later on when you need to give evidence as to how
you have met your objectives.
3) to make Luckan, the Finnish-Swedish information- and culture centre, more embracing for
immigrants and also to be able to offer customized service for the target group.
Again, vague. “Embracing” needs to be spelled out, as does what you mean by customized
service.
2.3 Marketing Plan
To which objective does marketing belong, or is it integrated in all?
2.4 Evaluation of the Project
Generally some type of project evaluation model should be included around which the
evaluation plan should be structured. There are any number of project evaluation models out
there, and thus one ought to decide which type of evaluation model would best be suited for
BRIDGE.
II.
General Comments
1. When you are attempting to further the integration process, you seem to want to
concentrate on all facets of this phenomenon; ie. economic, social, etc., and while this is
commendable it may not be possible as integration itself is a vast field. The danger in
attempting to address everything is that you do neither very well, and thus some
discussion on what BRIDGE can do best might be necessary.
2. It may be necessary to redefine your target group. At the moment it seems to be
immigrants of all ages, as well as Finnish society (attitude change objective), and this is
partly to blame for the multitude of activities and endeavors. Once you define the target
group more precisely in line with what is most achievable then it may be easier to
prioritize activities.
3. My suggestion is that your main target group ought to be those immigrants, New Finns
who use Luckan regularly and develop those services which they are most interested in.
This will mean that objective no. 1 front office development (supervision) must be high
on the agenda. This entails in my view, focus on client-driven activities, development of
the BRIDGE website and marketing for project dissemination, and service model
development (i.e. how, why, and what you wish to achieve in the service provision).
4. The second main focus ought to be the job training aspects (recruitment) linked with
language course development and an initial start on the scholarship scheme. The training
component of immigrant boys is a wonderful idea, though it may be somewhat
amibitious.
5. The focus on attitude change, while commendable should be reassessed as one the main
objectives of BRIDGE. It is here that your target group becomes rather wide and one
could look at deprioritizing the mentor scheme and linking language and job training
courses with recruitment objectives (as mentioned in point 4)
6. This final point may run contrary to the nature of Luckan as a cultural center, but in light
of BRIDGE integration aims, one could reduce the sheer volume of cultural activities and
also narrow down the target group for such activities so that they mirror those who use
the front office services. I realize that this may not be as easy but as previously
mentioned, the target group width needs to be addressed, as does what aspect of
“integration” one focuses on more, though all aspects are naturally important and
interlinked.
Again, I do not simply mean to point out inconsistencies or “problems but am naturally in favour
of the aims and objectives of BRIDGE and wish its implementation all the best. I have found in
past experience ,however, that if objectives are too broad, or if one takes on too much (with all
of the best intentions) projects can suffer from a split in focus and therefore also a lack of
effectiveness, and participant satisfaction.
Cheerio, Tobbe