Lomatie 12
75500 Nurmes
Finland
- Arts
- Environment/Sustainable development
- International/Cultural relations
- Media
- Others
- Research
- Youth and education
As a Youth Centre we belong to a national network of 10 Centres (www.snk.fi) coordinating, implementing and developing youth work and youth policy in Finland. We were established in 1982, and in the past years we’ve been increasingly involved in youth work policy and practice discussions and implementation, based on our experience in the field. Our main aim is to support and improve the quality of youth work carried out especially in Eastern-Finland, as we are mandated also to do by the Youth law of Finland, as well as the Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture. Through our activities and partnerships we have gathered a vast amount of experience, and a significant role in developing youth work quality and policy in the region, and also Finland.
We work through local, regional, national and international partnerships to offer youth work and young people opportunities to engage their selves in learning and educational activities, mobility and more. Our main target group are children and young people under the age of 30-years-old, as well as the people and organisations directly working with them. We host more than 150 activities, seminars and camps for this particular target group in the Centre yearly, and act as a seminar and event centre for other customers too (i.e. holidays, weddings, conferences etc.).
In the past years our strategy development has taken us strongly towards to supporting especially the topics of fight against youth unemployment, social empowerment, intercultural learning, media education and school cooperation. On a practical level, our educational staff offers educational activities, basic youth work and youth information services, coaching, outreach youth work and youth workshop services to children and young people and people working with them - We have various long-term projects co-funded by the ministry of education and culture and i.e. European funding tackling these topics. More specified description of the activities below.
One of our main focal points in the past years has also been to cooperate and develop international partnerships and initiatives. In the past 10 years we coordinated and implemented more than 40 international projects, through which we’ve built a network around 80 partner organisations, mainly around Europe. As we are located in the Eastern parts of Finland, we have also an emphasis for cooperating with Russian Karelia, besides youth work objectives and activities also opening paths and cooperation also for tourism and leisure groups to cross the border.
Our centre’s staff consists 15+ professionals working directly with young people, and all in all more than 35 employees supporting the activities and running the Centre. Our Centre can accommodate up to 200 customers, and offers wide range of facilites to run camps, conferences, seminars, lectures and outdoor (adventure) experiences. Beside this our outdoor grass fields, and the 2012 finished state of the art sports hall Pielis Arena offers great possibilities for sports events, fairs, tournaments and leisure time activities.
On regional level we work with other NGO’s, schools and more trying to support their agendas and link them stronger to the youth policy through offering training, opportunities and networking as a “hub”. Through our status as a National Youth Centre, and as a part of being a network of 10 centres in Finland in total, we also try to play a role in the society level discussions about children, young people, youth work and education. We also implement the Finnish state youth law strategy, in example through various projects (also some mentioned below) funded directly i.e. through the Ministry of education and culture. Through our international coordination we’ve also networked and implemented a lot of international projects over the past 10-15 years, with main focus now on European and Russian cooperation.
Below some concrete examples of our main activities to give you a glimpse of what we actually do:
As one of our main activities (60-70 camp schools a year), we work together with schools from the region, implementing “camp schools” in the Centre. The camp schools are a cooperation that supports the educational curricula of children and young people, planned together with individual classes and teachers. As a practical example, a school class can come to study i.e. a subject of biology (listed in the curricula) through outdoor education methodology and experimental learning, at the same time focusing on their group dynamics, social skills and more. Classes come to us for a i.e. for a period of 1 week, and learn their subjects and reinforce their groups through experimental and non-formal learning methodology
International youth activities, exchanges and voluntary work are of major importance at Hyvärilä. Various international youth projects are coordinated and promoted by Hyvärilä Youth Centre. These have included several European youth exchanges, seminars, youth camps and workshops, where participants across Europe and beyond have participated. Hyvärilä is active user of EU´s funding -programmes, and member of the EURODESK, PLATFORM and ENYC networks. Hyvärilä provides also international youth information services for the youth in the region. Besides European cooperation, also cross -border cooperation, Nordic cooperation and the Baltic Sea cooperation are of Hyvärilä’s interest. The goal is to improve the internationalization of the Finnish youth, as well as to provide unforgettable non-formal learning experiences for the visiting international youth groups. The purpose of all the international youth work is to promote acceptance of difference, feeling of community, cultural understanding, cultural awareness, and intercultural dialogue. In a year we run about 4-6 exchanges, training courses and voluntary projects (we host i.e. 2 long term EVS volunteers around the year).
Social youth work & coaching
Social youth work coordination (funded by the ministry of education and culture) is carried out in 8 of the 10 youth centres. The idea is to organise short term coaching (camps) that support young people between the ages of 15-28 with fewer opportunities. In practice this means that we work directly together with the regions outreach youth work and youth workshops, that target and work with young people with economical, social and emotional challenges. In practice we run more than 30 camps a year for groups coming to learn about daily routines, social skills and empowerment, and plan their future steps in terms of employment, education and training.
Every youth centre has their speciality. One of ours developing is our media project and coordination for media education in the area. This 3 year media project aims to cooperate with the regions schools and youth work tackling topics of “how to make a difference”, promoting creativity and teaching about media skills, criticism and awareness to kids and young people through audio visual media as a methodology. The project is funded by the ministry of education and culture in Finland, providing us also with high quality equipment to produce, edit, record, and broadcast radio shows, short films and empowering photography as a part of our offered activities. This naturally gives us also the opportunity to combine the different activities together with Eetteristä Itään.
Our Youth Centre is able and willing to contribute our experience and expertise from the past 35 years of youth work and educational activities. We are hoping to engage in the network, also through bringing our own regional, national and international partners and their knowledge to the table. As mentioned before, our activities and projects involving children, young people and professionals working with them can be also offered to support the field of youth work and education through the AFL network.
Our interest is to diversify our practices, and gain more reliable partners to work with. We feel that the AFL network could be a potential way to do so, and are keen to explore the opportunities it offers to the Youth Centre's strategy and daily practices. We hope to be able to set up new initiatives and projects that are aligned with both, our and AFL networks aiims.