Finland has a comparatively high rate of volunteering, with one EU study finding up to 40 percent of adults said they were involved in some form of voluntary work.
Volunteering can also offer newcomers to Finland a gateway into local communities and wider Finnish society.
APN listener Karen wrote into the show to describe her experiences of volunteering.
"I know many people struggle to find friends here and volunteering on a biodynamic farm was how I made friends when I arrived over 10 years ago," Karen told APN. "Volunteering is often overlooked as a great way to make friends and join the community."
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena via Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
But while there are many benefits, there are barriers too.
Satu Puolitaival of Citizens Forum runs the website vapaaehtoistyö.fi, which aims to match willing volunteers with organizations and associations that arrange volunteering tasks. She told the show that foreigners in Finland face many challenges when trying to find a volunteering opportunity — including a lack of information.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about volunteering," Puolitaival said. "I have heard from some groups of people that they consider volunteering as slave work, because in many countries volunteering is very different, it just doesn't happen the same way it does here."
As usual, APN also wraps up the rest of this week's news from Finland, including the latest on the border closure, Finland's climate goals, and a unique place to stay in Helsinki.
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This week's show was presented by Ronan Browne and Veronica Kontopoulou. The sound engineer was Juha Hjelm.
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