The Social Insurance Institution of Finland, OmaKanta and Ilmarinen
At the moment me or my family members are not using any Kela’s services. Few years ago when me and my spouse still studied we got study grant and also government guarantee for a student loan. My spouse has already paid his student loan back and I am paying it now monthly. We both have full-time jobs and we are highly educated so we haven’t been in a need of social assistance. In the future if we decide to have kids we will be having support from Kela, because Kela is helping children and families with several benefits. For example we will receive a maternity grant that you can choose between maternity package and a tax-free cash benefit of 170 euros. The maternity package contains a good set of clothes for baby and other useful care products and materials.
As a Finnish citizen, I have been able to obtain a European health care card issued by Kela. It allows me to receive the necessary treatment in EU and EEA countries if I need some healthcare while travelling. I have been lucky to have never used the card.
In OmaKanta I can see for example my health information, prescriptions and vaccination information. The service requires strong identification with such as bank credentials. I have used OmaKanta couple times before for example when I have had to renew some prescriptions and for getting the EU Digital COVID certificate.
I couldn’t find any information in Keva, but I found my information in Ilmarinen which is a private earnings-related pension insurance company that my current employer is using. At the moment it seems that I could retired at the age of 68 and my pension would be 2100 euros per month with my current salary. However it was interesting to see how much more my pension will be if I stay at work one or two years longer. If I would retired at the age on 70 my pension would be 2500 euros per month.
I am now 30 years old so we will see what kind of a pension system we even have in Finland at that time.
Digital shops and services
I visited the digital shops I use the most: Ruohonjuuri and lippu.fi. Ruohonjuuri sells products of beauty, health and lifestyle that are ecological and organic. If I need to buy more products at the same time I usually do it online. In Ruohonjuuri online shop you don’t have to pay postages if you can pick up your order from the local shop <and I usually do that. If I need to buy just one or two products I visit the shop in the city center of Tampere. The prices are in the online shop and in the local shop mainly the same but there are more offers in the digital shop. Also the selection is wider in digital shop.
Lippu.fi I use when I buy tickets to concerts or events. The prices are the same than in “ticket offices” but there is usually some extra payment (1 or 2 euros) for using the online service. I still use the online service almost every time because it is so easy when you get your tickets to your e-mail.
From my own field I chose vapaaehtoistyö.fi. It is a website where people can find interesting volunteer tasks for themselves and organisations can find volunteers to their tasks. I use this also in my work at the Finnish Red Cross at the moment. I have submitted several volunteer tasks to the website and for time to time I receive a notice in my e-mail that a new volunteer have enrolled to one of my tasks. After that I will contact the volunteer and tell she or he more about our activities and invite she or he to some upcoming event. It would be also possible to use vapaaehtoistyö.fi to get some statistics about the volunteers but I haven’t use those features.
Vapaaehtoistyö.fi is quite a good place to find new volunteers because it appears at the top if you do a Google search with the words “volunteer work Tampere”. On the other hand it takes time to keep all the submitted tasks updated. There is couple of more same kind of websites too (for example Lähellä.fi) but those we don’t use anymore because we didn’t get any new volunteers from those.
Digitalisation and digital gap
As I wrote in my Digital society assignment, in my work the digitalised systems are the only way to handle our big amount of both volunteers and volunteer activities. Here at Tampere we have almost 2300 volunteers registered and almost 30 different volunteer activities in one week. There is no other way than using digitalised registers and enrollment systems that we can handle our volunteers. Of course me and my co-workers are always helping the volunteers if they have some difficulties with using our digital services. We can do the enrollments for them but we also try to encourage our volunteers to learn to use the digital services.
Unfortunately that means that some people can’t do volunteer work in the Finnish Red Cross in Tampere. The good thing is that in Tampere there are a lot of different kinds of volunteer activities organised by other organisations than the Finnish Red Cross and in some of them you can do volunteer work without even having an e-mail address.
Digital competence test
Taking the test was interesting. It was quite surprising how different types of questions there were.
My result was level 5, advanced. It says that: “Users on level 5 (advanced) are able to perform many different tasks and guide others in doing the same. They can also solve most problems on their own.” My top three competences were collaboration, social awareness and health. That’s actually very good because I chose collaboration and social awareness to be most important competences in my current job. I could definitely do better the production area so maybe that is something I will focus on.
Self-reflection
It was good to think about once more about the use of digitalised tools in my work. The digital competence test was quite fun to do and it really gave me new information about my skills. It was also interesting to read other students’ thoughts about this topic.
The blogs I commented:
Hello Kaisa!
It is surprising how little young adults seem to need Kela’s services based on blog posts. It’s great that you can manage on your own and are healthy. Your observation about not knowing what the pension system in Finland will be like in the future is interesting.
Hello. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I paid attention to the results of the digital comperence test. It seems that I, too, obtained a similar outcome from this test. My results were relatively even across different areas, although I scored the lowest in the Production section. I found the test to be comprehensive, diverse and eye-opening. If you’d like, you can take a look at my blog on the page https://blogi.savonia.fi/jarmolampimaki/digi-citizen/.
Hi Kaisa,
it was interesting to read your post. I’ve never heard of vapaaehtoistyö.fi site, but it seems to be a very good way to combine volunteer tasks and volunteers. Digitalized systems are certainly the only way to handle with a big amounth of both volunteers and volunteer activities, like you said. It’s great that you can help and teach volunteers how to use your digital services. That gives them the opportunity to do valuable volunteer work. It can also encourage people to use other digital systems.
Hi,
thank you for an interesting blog post. I have also never heard of https://vapaaehtoistyo.fi/fi/ before, but I will certainly share this page forward amongst my co-workers and friends. Very handy with these kind of webpages that gather all the information on the same place. Well worth visiting again.
Hi!
I myself have never heard of the website (vapaaehtoistyö.fi) you mentioned before. It is gratifying to see concretely how digitalization can help in doing good. There is researched information that volunteering can also help in managing your own mental health. Helping others is also good for yourself. In my own work at the psychiatry outpatient clinic, I plan to use the website you mentioned whenever possible.
Hi! It was interesting to read your post. It’s sad that some of the volunteers can’t volunteer with you if they don’t know how to use digital services. At Perheentalo in Iisalmi, we don’t have to volunteer to do the same as you, but we are a very small operator compared to you.
I believe that many seniors miss out on good services because they don’t have digital skills. I feel sad about it. If you want, you can find my blog here: https://blogi.savonia.fi/annikaluokkanen/
Hei,
It was really nice reading your post. Personally I have have also had the opportunity to use the digital services, particularly the healthcare services. It is really nice that one can access ones data at the touch of ones hand. But, speaking to some of my friends, I have realized that some people do not really know that they can access the services that easily, and I taken the opportunity to educate them about the digital platforms/services. Like others have commented, I also did not know about vapaaehtoistyö(.)fi until now. It is really good to be informed about these things. Thank you.
You can take a look at my blog on https://oluwafemiadekola.wordpress.com/digi-society/