A big part of the general discussion in the past few years has focused on how NESU could regain our former position in the countries we used to be in. Unfortunately talking about being more international is the most we’ve done. There has been efforts in contacting student union representatives in Sweden, Denmark and Norway and some efforts by single individuals, via their personal contacts, to promote NESU in these countries. Unfortunately this has not been enough and we need to seek for alternative ways for internationalisation.
In this blog I’ve gathered some thoughts about the current situation and of what we all can do for NESU to get more international again.
As many of you may know the organizers of the Helsinki Spring Conference made a successful trip to Stockholm to promote NESU aiming to raise interest in this kind of student cooperation and maybe even get some applicants for the conference.
Later on in the spring we’ve also planned to promote NESU in Denmark with the help of finnish exchange students there enforced with already existing personal contacts.
In my opinion this is the kind of work we all need to and can do together. The opportunities for us to regain our position in rest of the Nordic countries lay on personal relationships and promoting NESU for people in their own countries.
If we manage to get our local connections interested in NESU we have a chance to promote ourselves and get the message through in a more efficient way.
The work can also be done at home to some extent. Supporting NESU Tallin in getting more Estonian people interested in the union is something we need to think about. I also hope that by combining the forces of both NESU-organizations in Vaasa we could get the students in Umeå to join us.
In Finland we also have a huge amount of exchange students from other nordic countries. I encourage all of our local organisations to try to take them into the union and NESU activities while they are here. This way they can take NESU with them back to their home country.
Getting back the lost countries to the union is not an easy job and requires that we all work together for it. I’m feeling optimistic about this task though. The first steps have already been taken and I’m looking forward to discuss these matters more widely with my fellow NESU members in the upcoming conference.
Jussi Nieminen
President