Reflecting on her story so far.

Naima Mohamud is a natural born storyteller. She is also an award-winning film director with a dazzling smile and a ready laugh. Her short film Fatima won the main prize in Chicago’s International Children’s Film Festival and she was awarded the Children’s Educator of the Year prize this year in Finland. Mohamud also happens to be a Somali immigrant from a family of ten, a devout Muslim, a young woman with strong ideas who also happens to wear a headscarf and is my friend. We meet in a busy café, where over gelatos and coffee, Mohamud tells me her story, so far.

Kavilesh Gupta sees that biofuel is a viable option for Finland’s future, but acknowledges it will not solve the problem once global demand for oil outweighs supply.

WHILE the world grapples with overpopulation and its subsequent drain on resources, oil continues its dominance in people’s everyday lives. But what happens when the oil dries up? How to implement strategies that offer viable alternatives? How economical is each option?

The power of a story.

WANJIKU WA NGUGI’S life is not just fascinating, it’s also inspiring. Wa Ngugi was born in Kenya surrounded by a storytelling culture and family members that were constantly gobbling up books because “that’s all we ever really did, we all just read brutally at home.” Though she studied political science and sociology at New York University literature was always her calling. Thus she began working as an editor for the American publishing house Africa World Press (AWP).

Nils Erik Forsgård believes it’s time for the Finland-Swede community to stop acting like a hedgehog and open their culture to change.

SITUATED near the corner of Helsinki’s Annankatu and Boulevardi, the interior of the Swedish-language think tank Magma offers some remarkable contrasts. A large window frames the office of Magma’s director Nils Erik Forsgård, overlooking the graves scattered around Ruttopuisto (aka Plague Park). A glance into an adjacent room reveals a wall adorned with a disturbing photo of a woman, completely submerged by water.

Carrying on the tradition of old school blues.

IT sounds like the set up of a well-worn joke: a Scotsman, a Finn and an American walk into a bar. Yet, for Robbie Hill & The Blue 62’s, their punchline is that their unlikely ingredients together create remarkable, authentic blues. Based in Helsinki, the band consists of Robbie Hill, the front man, singer and guitarist; Tatu Pärssinen, the drummer and also an architect; and Jesse King, the bass player who also manages a surf shop in Helsinki.