Infobank (Infopankki.fi) is a multilingual web service targeted at immigrants living in Finland as well as the authorities providing them with public services. The information on the website is available in 15 languages. The site contains basic information on everyday questions, including healthcare, social services, education, employment and links to other relevant websites offering comprehensive and complementary information. This national web service was launched in 2003, and receives approximately 50,000 visitors per month.
Policy Context
Infobank is part of the International Cultural Centre Caisa, which belongs to The Cultural Office of the City of Helsinki. The main focus of Caisa is to support multiculturalism and the integration of immigrants living in the city. Infobank is a significant part of this work. The strategic foundation of Caisa’s work is in the Integration Programme of the City of Helsinki (since 1998) and in the Plan for Preventing Racism and Discrimination (since 2004). Both of these documents require equal treatment for citizens regardless of their origins and also demand active measures so that representatives of minorities receive sufficient information about available alternatives, know their legal rights and have equal opportunities to become active members of the society. Infobank has been founded to implement these goals. The most important law regulating immigration issues is the Act on Integration and Reception of Asylum Seekers, which obliges the authorities to give immigrants sufficient support for their integration process. Giving information in the immigrants’ own languages is an important part of this process. The different ministries have a responsibility in this, especially the ministry of Labour and the ministry of Education. Both of these ministries finance Infobank for carrying out this task. Another important law that steers the activity of Infobank is The Finnish Non-Discrimination Act (1999) according to which the authorities have obligation to actively enhance equality and non-discrimination in the society in communication and decision-making. Again, Infobank supports these requirements. Infobank is also constructed and developed following the Finnish public sector web quality criteria, making sure that the site is accessible to as many web users as possible, simple to use and takes in consideration the needs of different target groups.
Description of target users and groups
Immigrants residing in Finland, authorities in contact with immigrants and foreigners planning to immigrate to Finland.
Description of the way to implement the initiative
Infobank is run by a board with representatives of the ministries of Labour and Education, the partnering cities (immigration coordinators and web editors of Helsinki, Rovaniemi, Kuopio, Turku, Tampere and Kainuu region) and important public web services (suomi.fi and selma-net.fi). The board meets twice a year to decide upon the strategic matters concerning the site. Minor decisions are taken via e-mail. The board has been very active and because it consists of both experts in immigration issues and web production, developing of the site has been very fruitful. In addition with the board, the web editors of the different cities are regularly in contact exchanging ideas. The main partnering city is Helsinki, which finances the salaries of two employees and provides facilities for them. Infobank functions within the organisation of the city of Helsinki, namely in the international cultural Centre Caisa in the Cultural Office of the City. The Helsinki office coordinates the cooperation between the partnering cities and other cooperation networks. The persons responsible in updating the local sites within the main site do this as a part-time. Taking this in consideration they have been remarkably active in developing the site.
Main results, benefits and impacts
The impact of Infobank is sustainable because it supports the long-term integration of the site users. According to the questionnaire, 38% of the users visit the site 1-3 times a month, which indicates that they find the site useful and come back to look for more information for different purposes. Until year 2005 Infobank used to be Helsinki’s site for immigrants. Because of the good results achieved, other cities wanted to join the service. Today, five cities and one region (Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Kuopio, Rovaniemi and the Kainuu region) belong to the service and others have expressed their wish to join in. Immigrants and authorities in many other cities also use the service, because they don’t have multilingual services themselves. In fact, Infobank serves immigrants anywhere in Finland. Part of the site consists of information about the services of the partnering cities, but most of the content in the site is applicable anywhere in Finland. According to the questionnaire results, 48 % of the visitors were looking for information either for themselves or for their relations and 42 % were authorities providing services for immigrants. The fact that so many authorities use the site is very significant. It is possible to look for information in Infobank in Finnish and then switch on to the customer’s language, making communication between authorities and their immigrant customers easier. In most cases the problem of immigrants needing information is not the lack of information itself, but the difficulty of finding the right information. Each and every public authority has its own sites, but the information in them is organised from the perspective of these organisations. In order to find the information, the immigrants should know a lot about the authorities and their different tasks. In Infobank the content is organised not according to the need of authorities (eg. what a certain authority does) but according to the needs of the immigrants themselves. The service was originally produced as part of the Open Learning Centre project (in 2001-2003), funded by City of Helsinki and the European Social Fund. In this project counsellors with an immigrant beckground, helped other immigrants to find answers to questions concerning their everyday life in Finland in their own native language. The content of the service is based on this information. That is why the content of the service is relevant from the point of view of the users. The content is also constantly revised based on the feedback.
Return on investment
Return on investment: Not applicable / Not availableTrack record of sharing
In its present form, Infobank consists of a network of five cities and one region. The entire process of producing content for the site and developing the service is done in cooperation between the staff of the partnering cities. In the process both experts of immigration issues and web production participate in order to achieve the best possible result. Good practices in different cities are exchanged and ideas shared in regular meetings. Infobank also participates actively in the network of public web services, with monthly meetings to share ideas and practices. Infobank is actively in dialogue with an an extensive network of national and local authorities and NGO’s (eg. the National Directorate of Immigration, the Ministries of Labour and Education, different offices of city administration, Immigrant associations etc.). New ideas, practices and developments are constantly planned and discussed. Because of the active networking between the partnering cities and also within the cities Infobank has also been influential in convincing other organizations that there is a real need for multilingual content on their web sites also elsewhere than in Infobank. This process is slow but it has already had some good results.
Lessons learnt
Lesson 1 - First of all, the Infobank site is accessible to as many web users as possible. The site is possible to load also with a slower computer, it is simple to use and takes in consideration the needs of different target groups. The information is provided in a simple and accessible way and it is easy to read and understand. Lesson 2 - The content of the sites is easy to revise and keep up-to-date. The sites are continually developed based on the feedback received from the users and partnering network. Lesson 3 - The content of the sites is designed with the local and national authorities and NGOs, which guarantees the accuracy and the up-to-date quality of the information.
Scope: National