Meet Lapinlahti people: John Franzen & Jennifer Ramirez

Our series travels from the Baghdadi Alaa to the Lapinlahti communications power duo, Jonh Franzén and Jennifer Ramirez. They have recently moved into the house with their communications company, Uudly, even though Jennifer might be a familiar sight for many since summer 2021. She has a vital role in the communications for the Lapinlahti community, and people following the social media channels and website have absolutely seen Jennifer’s handiwork.

In a way, Jennifer and John’s story together starts from when John was pondering his future after a long career as a director for TV shows at Yle. He decided to change the course of his life, started travelling, and finally met Jennifer in her home country, Colombia, twelve years ago. Not long after that, they moved to Finland. Jennifer has a background in communications, but in Finland she decided to improve as an artist due to the cultural shock and lack of jobs in the communications field. She crocheted and made illustrations. Today, communications and art are not separate from each other, but it has been possible to combine them in Lapinlahti, Jennifer says.

Ultimately, Jennifer worked as an artist for ten years, but now she and John have a communications company together, Uudly, which began from a call for help from a non-governmental organisation. Because John has experience on filming, photography and graphics, the NGO asked him if he would be able to help share information about support person work to young people. John says that many of the people needing a support person were young men, but the support people were often women over 60. The project was a huge success, and it felt like a good idea to continue offering communications help to NGOs.

John and Jennifer visited Lapinlahti the first time in 2016, when MIELI ry organised one of their Mental health first aid -courses in the main building. It was much quieter in Lapinlahti back then, and the place even felt a little daunting. “Do I dare even step into the house?” Jennifer remembers thinking. After that event, they forgot Lapinlahti for years, until Jennifer started in communications at Lapinlahden Lähde in 2021.

Today the thing that’s especially great in Lapinlahti, is that it develops continually, but at the pace of people, not the demands of society, Jennifer says. The pace isn’t fast, but she thinks it is healthy that things move at their own pace. It’s also remarkable that the stigma around mental health issues is being dismantled in Lapinlahti. There are some things to fix, still: Jennifer wishes that the cleanliness of the park got more attention, for example there is need for toilets. It would bee good for the image of the area if the thing visitors met first wasn’t a messy park.

“And goose poo on the lawn,” Jennifer jokes.

John thinks Lapinlahti might be the last bastion of free culture: it doesn’t take into account the background or financial situation of a person, and feels safe despite your mood, even on bad days. Another important thing in Lapinlahti are the free events that are easy to take part in. John emphasises, that it is important for a city’s wellbeing that there is a central, accessible, and peaceful place. The fact that Lapinlahti is located within nature, but still in the city, is also important to John and Jennifer. The commute to their workspace isn’t long, and when you go out, you don’t step right into the busy city, but into the calmness of the park. Jennifer feels that the calmness of the place is also beneficial to the clients of the therapists working in the house.

The thing John is waiting for in the future is that Lapinlahti would be a more familiar place to the city of Helsinki. “It is very good PR to the city to offer free activities,” he adds. Jennifer wishes that the value of the area would be better understood—including value that you can’t measure in money. The working opportunities Lapinlahti offers are important for people recovering from mental illness and people who have been away from work life for a long time. What would happen to them, were the place to disappear, John asks, and answers his question by saying that Lapinlahti is too important to be able to disappear.

Thank you for the interview, John and Jennifer, and good luck for your future endeavours!