New online services for donating items:
The increasing number of asylum seekers has activated many Finnish people to help. One of the donations to the Finnish Immigration Service is a website: Lahjoitukset.fi that helps reception centres to coordinate the donations they receive. This was developed by Helsinki-based Elina Niemistö as charity work.
“At Lahjoitukset.fi, reception centres can list what and how much they need. People who wish to donate can select a centre and tick their donation on the list, for example the number of coats they are going to donate. Then they select a date for delivering the items to the reception centre. The list will be updated as soon as the reception centre reports that it has received the donation,” Niemistö says.
The website will reduce the number of donation-related emails and phone calls to reception centres. It will also ensure that each reception centre receives whatever items it genuinely needs. This will free up workforce for tasks other than managing and sorting donations. Reception centres can use the service for free and it is maintained by volunteers.
A professional concept designer, Niemistö came up with the idea at a friend’s wedding, where the discussion turned towards the work overload and flood of donations at reception centres. According to Niemistö, the site structure familiar from wedding registries seemed like a natural solution for managing donations.
“I find it important to ease the workload of reception centres and to donate my know-how as best as I can,” Niemistö says.
Everyone who helped her build the service worked for free. The work needed to build the service was donated by Tuomas Ryhänen of Kerros Solutions and the illustrations were created by artist and illustrator Toni Halonen.
The service will be opened for donations on Thursday 22 October at www.lahjoitukset.fi. The first reception centres to participate are the Seinäjoki Reception Centre, the group homes in Espoo and the Vallinkorva emergency accommodation unit in Oulu. More reception centres will be added to the service as soon as they send their details to the service administrators.
Further information for the media:
Elina Niemistö
tel. +358 40 352 8355
elina.niemisto@gmail.com
