When being in a strange place halfway around the world from home, feeling the icy coldness of a heavily snowy day when temperature falls 30-40 degrees Celsius below zero, hearing a strange voice in your own language is just enough to warm you up.
That’s the way Marjo Paavola, director and senior consultant of Ramboll international group in Finland , chose to welcome a delegation of Vietnamese experts who came to her country to learn communications experiences in relation to science and technology. “Hi everybody. How do you do!,” she welcomed the visitors in the Vietnamese language.
Her natural salutation took the group of visitors by surprise and refresh their sleepy, tiring minds almost worn out after a 26-hour flight plus eight hours waiting to transit.
As her company won a bidding contract to implement a support programme for Vietnam under the Innovation Partnership Programme (IPP) scheme of the Finnish government, Paavola was assigned to be a liaison officer for the visiting Vietnamese delegation from the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The assignment partly came out of her working experiences in Vietnam in the early 2000s and her proficiency of the Vietnamese language.
Back to the time from 2001-2005, Paavola was a familiar name among not only the authorities of the northern port city of Hai Phong, but also to the city dwellers. She was then among a group of Finnish experts joining in a project on water supply and drainage and environmental protection for the port city.
During the time, she frequently showed up on the local TV and newspapers and sometimes even on the central television to introduce about the project. Her work has contributed to settle the many issues of practical needs regarding environment and drainage for local people.
Paavola also took part in another Finnish project on poverty reduction and hunger elimination for a number of cities and provinces in northern Vietnam. She had for many times come to ethnic people in remote villages of Bac Kan, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Lao Cai provinces to examine the effectiveness of the funding allocated to the provinces.
Thanks to her active lobby, Hai Phong has received a one-million-USD funding from the Finnish government for poverty reduction work.
The thread that kept her in Vietnam later turned out to be the one that tied her up to a Vietnamese husband in 2005. Paavola bumped into Dinh Quynh, her present husband, when she was jogging on a sunny, beautiful day. During the three year’s hanging out together, Quynh helped Paavola learn Vietnamese language as well as tradition, culture and gastronomy.
The couple is now living in the capital city of Helsinki , where she continues to work in support of Vietnam and Quynh worked for a food supply company. Despite both holding Finnish citizenship, for Paavola, the sentence “I am a Vietnamese” is always her favourite expression.
She is now applying to be an expert for another Finland ’s project to be carried out in Vietnam in order to bring her knowledge and experience back “home” and help the people here./.
That’s the way Marjo Paavola, director and senior consultant of Ramboll international group in Finland , chose to welcome a delegation of Vietnamese experts who came to her country to learn communications experiences in relation to science and technology. “Hi everybody. How do you do!,” she welcomed the visitors in the Vietnamese language.
Her natural salutation took the group of visitors by surprise and refresh their sleepy, tiring minds almost worn out after a 26-hour flight plus eight hours waiting to transit.
As her company won a bidding contract to implement a support programme for Vietnam under the Innovation Partnership Programme (IPP) scheme of the Finnish government, Paavola was assigned to be a liaison officer for the visiting Vietnamese delegation from the Ministry of Science and Technology.
The assignment partly came out of her working experiences in Vietnam in the early 2000s and her proficiency of the Vietnamese language.
Back to the time from 2001-2005, Paavola was a familiar name among not only the authorities of the northern port city of Hai Phong, but also to the city dwellers. She was then among a group of Finnish experts joining in a project on water supply and drainage and environmental protection for the port city.
During the time, she frequently showed up on the local TV and newspapers and sometimes even on the central television to introduce about the project. Her work has contributed to settle the many issues of practical needs regarding environment and drainage for local people.
Paavola also took part in another Finnish project on poverty reduction and hunger elimination for a number of cities and provinces in northern Vietnam. She had for many times come to ethnic people in remote villages of Bac Kan, Cao Bang, Lang Son and Lao Cai provinces to examine the effectiveness of the funding allocated to the provinces.
Thanks to her active lobby, Hai Phong has received a one-million-USD funding from the Finnish government for poverty reduction work.
The thread that kept her in Vietnam later turned out to be the one that tied her up to a Vietnamese husband in 2005. Paavola bumped into Dinh Quynh, her present husband, when she was jogging on a sunny, beautiful day. During the three year’s hanging out together, Quynh helped Paavola learn Vietnamese language as well as tradition, culture and gastronomy.
The couple is now living in the capital city of Helsinki , where she continues to work in support of Vietnam and Quynh worked for a food supply company. Despite both holding Finnish citizenship, for Paavola, the sentence “I am a Vietnamese” is always her favourite expression.
She is now applying to be an expert for another Finland ’s project to be carried out in Vietnam in order to bring her knowledge and experience back “home” and help the people here./.
