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FCP for alumni starts on 10 June

Ministry for Foreign Affairs
Publication date 10.6.2019 13.00
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ThisisFINLAND’s first Foreign Correspondents Programme (FCP) for alumni will bring to Finland ten journalists and media professionals who have participated in the programme in earlier years. The alumni programme will take place from 10 to 15 June. We aim to offer the participants an updated picture of Finland.

Photo: Nicolás Monteverde FCP 2018 family photo

The Foreign Ministry’s key country branding programme, the FCP, has a long tradition – the first FCP was organised in 1990.   At the time, a group of young journalists visited Finland for a few weeks in order to learn about Finnish society and culture.

The first participants arrived from the USA, but since then hundreds of journalists and media professionals have applied for the FCP and the programme has been attended by young journalists from all over the world. Since the FCP has already reached a mature age, an alumni version will be organised for former participants. This time, the participants will arrive from ten European countries. 

Finland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union will feature in the programme

The programme will start on Monday 10 June and end on Saturday 15 June. The themes will include Finland’s upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union, Finland as the happiest country of the world, science, research, innovations, and the special characteristics of Finnish culture.

The majority of the time will be spent in the Greater Helsinki area, but a visit will be arranged to the Åland Islands, too. The programme is full, but we aim to ensure that the former FCP participants will get as diverse picture of today's Finland as possible to give them ideas for future articles back at home. During the week, the participants may also conduct interviews, and we look forward to reading the articles that they will produce. 

Participants from different European countries

The alumni will come from different media houses and they represent journalists, foreign correspondents and editors. One of the alumni has worked as a document journalist.

The participants have been asked to write in the FCP blog about their thoughts before arriving in Finland and about their feelings at the end of the week. From the previous FCP blogs, we can learn that Finland has left former FCP participants with a deep impression.  We hope that revisiting Finland will offer them new perspectives of Finland. It is also interesting to follow how Finland has changed over the years from their point of view.

This year, the participants will come from: Slovenia, Portugal, the UK, France, Romania, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Croatia and Lithuania.

Finland's missions in the participants’ home countries and the Department of Communications of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs have enjoyed the close cooperation during the preparatory phase.  Follow the programme on the FCP website and on their social media accounts!

 

Read more about the participants and the programme on the FCP website and on Facebook

FCP website

Presentation of the participants

FCP on Facebook

 
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