According to Eda Silberg, Undersecretary for Cultural Diversity at the Ministry of Culture, the new information service will make the process of newly arrived immigrants settling in Estonia smoother by ensuring they are better informed about the services available to them.
‘Adapting to a new country is a big challenge for everyone, regardless of whether the move was of one’s own free will or a forced decision. At the same time, adjusting to life in a new place and coping independently are important for the newly arrived immigrant, the host country, and society in general. The new information service will be there for newly arrived immigrants regardless of their location and time of day, thus offering more universal support than can be provided through, for example, counselling services,’ said Eda Silberg. Newly arrived immigrants need services in many different areas, but so far, they have had to look for them in many different places, without knowing Estonia or speaking Estonian.
According to Taavi Ploompuu, Head of the Personal Services Department of the Information System Authority (RIA), the information service on the state portal eesti.ee is available in three languages – English, Russian, and Estonian. The information service includes instructions on how to register your place of residence, register with a family physician, take part in the trainings of the adaptation programme, find a suitable Estonian language course, change your driving licence, find a school place for your child, and apply for family allowances provided by the state.
‘The information service can be found on the state portal eesti.ee and the information can be accessed with or without logging in to the portal,’ Ploompuu noted. Over time, the information service will be developed into a personalised digital service, also known as a proactive government service, which can be used not only by newly arrived immigrants, but also, for example, by returnees. ‘We are working to ensure that when logging in to the state portal eesti.ee, the users of the service would see a personalised view of the services and benefits that the state offers and to which they are entitled,’ Ploompuu noted.
The proactive government services developed by RIA and its partners are collections of information and services based on events taking place in people’s lives that bring the opportunities of Estonia’s e-governance to everyone in a way that is as convenient and personalised as possible, so that people will not need to search for information about the services and benefits available to them on the websites of different ministries and agencies. All proactive government services can be found on the state portal eesti.ee, which is the citizen’s gateway to the state’s e-services, information related to them, notifications sent by the state, the Data Tracker, and the consent service.
Proactive government services are funded by the European Union’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The proactive government service on adapting to Estonia was created in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, the Transport Administration, the Ministry of Education and Research, the Ministry of the Interior, the Social Insurance Board, the Health Insurance Fund, and the Police and Border Guard Board.
