The City of Helsinki is continuing efforts to recruit early childhood educators from Spain to address the shortage of teachers in public daycare centres.
The move follows on from a similar pilot last year aimed at Swedish-language daycares.
Yle's Swedish-language unit followed up with Melissa Apaolaza, who moved from Seville to her new job at a daycare in Helsinki this summer.
"Buenos Dias Nallebo!"
These days the kids at the Nallebo group at the Bertha Maria daycare in Helsinki's Töölö neigbourhood say their morning greetings in Spanish as well as Swedish.
Apaolaza has been working at the daycare since August. But her journey to Helsinki began a year earlier.
"I wanted to work abroad and searched online for daycare jobs. One of the first ones I found was here in Helsinki," she told Yle.
After two rounds of interviews, she was granted one of 12 spots for Spanish early childhood educators. According to the city of Helsinki, around 1,000 people applied for the programme.
Apaolaza said learning Swedish came as a surprise, as she was expecting to be studying Finnish.
"During the first interview, the person handling the recruitment said, 'Melissa, you'll have to learn Swedish.' What? I thought I was going to learn Finnish. It was a surprise for me," she explained.
In December of last year, she started learning Swedish online in Spain, an effort that lasted six months with 20-25 hours of studying per week. By June of this year, she passed the B2 exam in Swedish.
In August, she drove from Seville to Helsinki with her husband and two dogs. The journey took a week.
"I quickly realised that everyone speaks good English in Helsinki. But I didn't hear a lot of Swedish on the streets."
Two weeks later she started her job at Bertha Maria, where she said she felt instantly welcomed.
While organisers of the recruitment drive have said Spain has an oversupply of early childhood education teachers, Apaolaza was not unemployed before arriving in Finland. She worked as a substitute teacher in schools and daycare centres there.
"I think this is great for people who want to have new experiences. It's also good for Finland when there's a staff shortage."
After a few months in Finland, Apaolaza has noticed a few differences between daycare routines in Finland and Spain.
"In Spain, we don't take the children outside if it's raining. But here, we go outside even in rain and snow. I love it."
So far, Apaolaza said, the dark season hasn't put a damper on her mood. While it's sunny most of the time in Seville, she was born in Lima, Peru, where it can be quite overcast. She moved to Spain when at the age of 20.
The countries also differ in their emphasis on academic skills.
"In Spain, there's a lot more focus on learning to read and write already starting at the age of three. Here, we focus more on being a child. We learn about society, do crafts and spend time outside. I prefer it here."
Bertha Maria's director has nothing but praise for the Spanish educators taking the leap to move to Helsinki.
"Our experiences are positive. Melissa is empathetic with the children. She's also working hard on her Swedish," said daycare director Dan Engström, who added that it's important that the city helps these newcomers feel at home.
For now, Apaolaza is continuing her Swedish language studies at Arbis, an adult education centre in the same area as her workplace.
"Talking with the kids is easy. If I don't understand what a child is saying, I ask someone."
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