“The next weeks were normal weeks, during the day I was at the school helping the teacher with the classroom. And in the breaks, I was playing football or basketball with the children from the team. After school ended, we gathered the boy team and went on doing something, like playing soccer or swimming. On Mondays, there was also room for something different, like a trampoline park. The boys went crazy when we arrived at the park, and they couldn’t wait to start jumping on the trampolines. They went on doing front flips, backflips and jumping from a high platform onto an airbag. And of course, most of the time they also included me when they did something because some of the things were high so they didn’t dare to do it at first. But when I encouraged them or showed them how to do it they went down either way. This almost went wrong for me. One of the boys was trying to do a backflip off a platform into a foam pit. But he was scared of doing it, so I had to show it to him. I went up the platform with no clue how to do a backflip. Maybe not the best idea. Mikko gave me a short instruction: ‘Just look back, swing with your arms and pull your legs up.’ That doesn’t sound that hard, so there I went off the platform with no idea how I would end up. It ended up with me upside down in the foam pit, the boys laughing, and Mikko holding his camera while he was laughing. When I woke up the next morning, I almost couldn’t move my head due to the fall I made the day before! So working at Iceheart can be dangerous if you get railed up.”

“The next week I did some easier things with the class I was helping in the mornings. We went to a museum where the history of Finland was shown. There were a lot of artefacts, and I got to hold a sword, for sure the highlight of that day. The rest of the day went by fast, and the children enjoyed the museum. At this point, I was thinking about how great the internship is. Because every day I do something with sports or something unique, like a museum or going to a sauna. And this is my ‘work’, normal people do this kind of thing in their free time, and I am here doing it as part of my study. It is crazy how things can turn out if you just go on and enjoy it. One more thing about the museum, I walked into a room and was surprised with what is saw. I knew the Finnish people were crazy about their sauna, and I knew it was a big part of their life. But what I had not expected, was that a national museum would dedicate a whole room to the history of the sauna. Most of the days went by really fast, when I was in class, there was enough to do and the children liked it to teach me some Finnish. After that, there was enough to do in the Icehearts team, like playing football or basketball.”

“The thing that stays with me the most is the group itself. All the children were curious to meet me, and all of them spoke very good English and that at ten years of age. The whole team was kind to me and made me feel at home. Mikko, the team leader, was also really kind and came with a lot of great ideas of what I could do in Finland and Helsinki. He even took me to a sauna near a large lake and gave us tickets to an ice-hockey game, where Finland was playing against Russia. This was a great thing to see, and I would recommend it if you ever go to Finland. This was maybe the next best thing after going to a Finnish sauna, this is also one thing you need to do if you are in Finland. And don’t be afraid to go in the freezing water, because it feels great when you get out of the water.”

“Near the end of my stay in Finland, I went to Lapland with the two girls I was staying with. This involved a 12-hour train ride to Rovaniemi in the night, but it was worth it. The nature there is beautiful, everything was white because the whole forest was frozen. The next day, we went on a drive with the car we rented, to go further up north. The drive was quite tricky due to the slippery roads and all the moose standing next to or on the road. But it was worth it, we went onto a small mountain that was covered in snow, unfortunately, it was foggy so we could not see the panorama view, but the fog created a mysterious mountain view. This was maybe even better than the view. One of the reasons for the trip to Lapland was to see the northern lights, so most of the nights we spend in the car staring at the sky. But luck wasn’t on our side, and we did not see any northern lights. This is a pity, but it also creates a good excuse to go back sometime.”

Icehearts was established in 1996 in Vantaa, Finland. Icehearts uses team sports as a tool for engaging children with social work. The model provides consistent long-term support for vulnerable children at a time where children and their families are often met by numerous professionals. Each team is led by a mentor who supports the selected children at school, after school and at home for 12 years.