Finland

Passionate about making a difference

What do our employees do when they aren't working on delivering top-notch legal services? Below you will get a glimpse into Bird & Bird's extra curricular activities from this year, which show that their passion extends outside of the workplace. 

For starters, we have participated in the yearly Joulupuu gift-gathering project. Joulupuu is conducted by Junior Chamber Finland in cooperation with local social services. The purpose of Joulupuu is to collect Christmas presents for children and teenagers in foster care, foster families, orphanages, or in otherwise poor family conditions where they would not usually receive Christmas presents. Every child deserves a Christmas present and every donation allows them to participate in the festive season.

During the period from 25th November to 5th December, our staff members were encouraged to bring gifts and lay them underneath our office Christmas tree. The majority of our staff then got together for a joint gift wrapping session. All in all they collected an ample amount of gifts that were then distributed by Helsinki's Department of Social Services and Health Care to children and youths in Helsinki.

Wellbeing of children and youth is the key focus area also in our other Christmas donations this year – we continue supporting Tukikummit foundation in their important work in preventing youth alienation as well as taking part with our employees to a charity run, Joulujuoksu, organised by Save The Children in Finland

Our leisure committee  lend a helping hand

During autumn, our leisure committee, Tikkaajat, have crocheted little octopuses for prematurely born babies. The octopuses have "protective tentacles", called this as they are safe for tiny hands to hold on to. Babies have a need to grab on to something, and in an incubator there is always the danger that they can grab a tube which would not be safe. With a little octopus by their side, prematurely born babies can hold on to something safe.

The octopuses also help people suffering from memory disorders.  All octopuses crocheted by our leisure committee will be delivered to the Lapland Central Hospital.

At the beginning of the year our leisure committee also established a BloodGroup at our office. A BloodGroup is a group that donates blood on a regular basis, which is needed in the treatment of surgical patients, accident victims and other seriously ill people. The idea behind this was to encourage staff to do something good together.  Since blood cannot be replaced by artificial agents, for many seriously ill patients, donated blood is a true lifeline.

Overall, our staff made an astonishing 20 donations this year, which entitled us to a silver certificate of honour.