By Enrique Tessieri
Migrant Tales will celebrate its fifth year in existence on May 30. By then we’ll have passed the 1,000 posts mark and have received and responded to well over 30,000 comments, the lion’s share of which we have got in the past two years. Migrant Tales is a community of writers: JusticeDemon, Mark, Peter, eyeopener, Jonas, D4R, Sasu, BlandaUpp, Foreigner and many, many others.
What more wonderful occasion than our fifth year in existence to launch our new website http://migranttales.net?
I first used Migrant Tales in 1999, when syndicating columns for a number of English-language Finnish American publications in the United States and Canada.
Whenever a migrant moves to a new country he not only returns back to his former home a changed person, but has many tales to tell about his travels.
Those tales, which come from a large community of voices, can be read daily on our blog.
Our passion for social justice and our struggle against all forms of discrimination is our shield against the many vicious and hostile attacks that our blog and community has endured in Finland. The election victory of an anti-immigration and especially anti-Muslim party, the Perussuomalaiset (PS), is a clear challenge.
Our success as a blog would have never been possible without the support of many bloggers and publications. Migrant Tales has been contacted by Deutschlandradio, the National German Radio, Die Welt, BBC, TV channel 4 of St. Petersburg and others.
Here is a link to Dunia Magazine that published one of our columns. Migrant Tales earned a mention in Time Magazine right after the elections of 17 April 2011. and The Finns Daily are Twitter publications that pick up our blog entries. We have also been mentioned on YLE’s Suora linja and on numerous blogs, such as the Community Activist and popular Facebook pages like My Finland is international.
Traffic to our blog has soared. We expect the number of visits for the whole of 2011 to be surpassed in June. Despite our growth and successes, Migrant Tales ‘ main reason for existence is to challenge an ever-growing social ill in Finland.
We seek nothing more than to be a voice for those whose views and situation are understood poorly and heard faintly by the media, politicians and public.
Apart from mutual acceptance, respect and equal opportunities, our aim is inclusion of all people in Finnish society irrespective of background.
Thank you for your support and don’t be afraid to get involved!
Happy anniversary MT
Loooooooooooove uuuuuuuuuuuuuu sooooooooooooooo much
and forever
Where is ur chocolate cake LOL
la la la laaaaaa laaaaaaaa laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
youhooooooooooooooooooo am happy for u
U be success for always, u all of u MT
(((((((((((((((((((( MT)))))))))))))))))))))
Happy anniversary M.T, nothing but success i wish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EvERosS9ec&feature=related
sorry i just posted for second time this song because sound was not enough loud, but please now u delete send one and this comment, thanks
felicitaciones por estos cinco años de pelea a diario con los prejuicios y las desigualdades cuando se habla de inmigración. un abrazo y por muchos años más (con menos desigualdades), enrique-pepe grillo!
Hola Ruth, muchas gracias por tus felicitaciones. El gran placer de todo esto es very que no somos pocos sino muchos.
A belated congratulations! Apologies for the radio silence, I still visit but am going through a rather busy phase of life hence my lack of recent comments. But it was not nice to read of the threats of a few weeks back you received. I am glad that you continue with this very important project and hope that you are well.
Hi Jonas, great to hear from you. I think you are, apart from JusticeDemon, the oldest visitor to MT. Did we meet the first time in 2008?
Thank you for asking: I’m ok, fortunately. Alive and kicking as usual.