Study Visit International Countryside

Maria Christoforou and Charalambos Christoforou from the Akrounta Youth Club represented the Cyprus Youth Clubs Organisation in the European programme “Study Visit International Countryside” in Finland.Read their experience and find information about the example of the Youth Clubs of Finland!

Virrat, Finland, 22-26 November 2021

Study Visit International Countryside. We have “Countryside“ (like most youth clubs in Cyprus). By “International“ what does he mean? Let’s go to Study Visittofind out! And we went… So we took the car to the airport and then 3 planes, we went through 4 airports, Larnaca, Athens, Frankfurt, until we got to Helsinki. From there, we took a train, a metro and after a bit of walking, we finally arrived at the hotel. And it was only 16 hours since we started from Limassol.

The programme started on Monday afternoon, from Helsinki’s central square outside the train station. There, we met the participants and boarded the bus to Virrat Municipality, 290 km north of Helsinki. Around 8 in the evening, and after a 3.5 hour drive through the Finnish countryside, with the alternation of dense trees, flat plateaus and several lakes, with few settlements and scattered houses, we arrived at Marttinen Youth Center, where we would spend the next four days.

We were hosted at the Marttinen Youth Center, an island in essence, surrounded by a lake on three sides and a canal on the other. From there we started to get deep into the reality of the Finnish countryside. We lived in small wooden houses, with four rooms each, in a “neighbourhood”, with 25 participants from 11 different countries as roommates and neighbours. With the daily temperature ranging from -5°C to 3°C and with “sunshine” only 7 hours a day, we started our day at 8:00 in the morning, before it was well before dawn, crossing a distance of 500 meters through the snowy landscape, to go to the main building of the complex, where the kitchen and the dining room were located.

The program started at 9:00 (in the sunlight?) with presentations and activities in the two specially designed buildings of the complex, but also outdoors! The Study Visit was organised by the Finnish National Agency and its purpose was to present and promote the opportunities available to youth organisations through the European Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes.

Marttinen Youth Center

Marttinen is one of the nine youth centres in the Finnish Youth Centre Network, which are supervised and funded by the Ministry of Education and Culture. These Youth Centres do not have “their” young people. They have facilities that offer accommodation, food and other services, creating the right environment for the organization of camps, educational excursions, seminars and other events. The facilities are close to nature, offering opportunities for outdoor activities. The Youth Centres also participate or organise international activities, offering the opportunity for young people from Finland and beyond to participate.

Study Visit

We got even deeper into the reality of the Finnish countryside with our visits to the neighbouring municipalities and the presentations made by the local youth workers.

Finland is one of the most “non-urban” countries in Europe. It is described as the “land of thousands of lakes” (in fact there are 187,888 registered lakes) and forests. With a population of 5.4 million people, only one million live in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The rest of the population is scattered in the countryside, which makes up 90% of the territory, while arable land covers only 8%. Public transport between the towns and the neighbouring villages, as well as with the metropolitan centre, is limited, which makes it very difficult for rural residents, especially young people, to move around. So each region needs to find ways to provide the necessary services and opportunities for its residents.

Alavus

The first stop of our visits was the Municipality of Alavus. There the youth worker presented us the way the Youth House of the Municipality operates, as well as the European programmes in which they participate. The Youth House is open daily from August to May, while during the summer months it operates a summer school, with various activities in the countryside, while youth exchanges are organized. The youth workers of Alavus have a solid cooperation with organisations in France and every two years they host young people from France in their municipality, and in the intermediate year, they accompany young people from Finland to France. Youth exchanges are organised under the Erasmus+ programme.

Around 15:00 we visited the Youth House of Alavus. There, in a large, open space, we met local teenagers playing pool, foosball and ping-pong, listening to music and chatting with their friends, watching TV programmes or playing electronics. Discreetly, next to the common area, were the offices of the youth workers – some of whom played billiards with the children – while the building also had a cinema. The amazing thing about our visit was that the young people were spending the afternoon relaxed, in the company of their friends, without having to run around stressed out to tutorials and other stressful activities.

Ähtäri

The next destination was the Municipality of Ähtäri. There we were informed about the Leader programme and the activities of the four Leader Groups in the South Ostrobothnia region by representatives of Leader Kuudestaan and Leader Aisapari. The programme is related to the development of rural areas and each Leader Group is involved in guiding and supporting young people in the area to organise both local and international projects.

Bonus of our visit to Ähtäri was a tour of the Zoo. The Park operates as a wildlife sanctuary, aiming to preserve endangered species. It is home to, among other things, pandas and red pandas from areas of China that have the same climate as Finland, as well as endemic species such as reindeer.

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Ruovesi

In Ruovesi we visited a sewing workshop and learned about the activity of this kind of workshops in Finland. Almost every municipality has a number of workshops, on various topics, where young people can explore their skills and interests, so that they can decide what they want to do in life. The youth workers working in these workshops reach out to young people who have dropped out of education or the army, or who are facing other difficulties in their lives, with the aim of helping them to develop various life skills, to decide whether they want to continue their studies or find a job, but without taking decisions on their behalf.

Next to the workshop, there is a shop selling the creations of the young people participating in the workshops and other “second chance” items. The proceeds are used for the development of workshops and youth work in the region.

Virrat

The last stop was the Municipality of Virrat, where we learned about the close cooperation of teachers and youth workers in Virrat and neighbouring Orivesi. Youth workers visit schools to have the opportunity to get to know all the children in their area, and help students and teachers communicate better with each other. Youth workers support students in the afternoon as counsellors and discuss with them issues that young people cannot or do not want to talk about at school. They also help children and adolescents prepare for adult life and how to live on their own, from simple tasks such as looking after themselves and cleaning their homes, to more complex issues such as managing their money.

We were also informed about the Erasmus+ Accreditation that the local Youth Councils have secured for the next 7 years. Through this accreditation, they will submit an annual plan for the group’s activities to Erasmus+ and receive an overall grant, without having to submit separate applications for each activity or project.

Youth work

Youth work in Finland is institutionalised in each region by law. Each municipality should appoint youth workers, who meet the needs of the young people of the municipality and the neighbouring villages and provide them with the appropriate skills to support and help young people to develop. As a result, most municipalities have Youth Houses where local young people can spend time and come into contact with both their peers and youth workers.

The Municipalities also support and strengthen the efforts of youth workers for international activities, thus giving the opportunity for young people in the region to participate in these programmes and to come into contact with young people from other regions and countries in Europe. Most young people in rural areas in Finland have few opportunities to participate in activities outside their own region, so opportunities to participate in international activities are an important asset for developing both their skills and personalities.

Although our reality in Cyprus is quite different from that in Finland, with completely different climatic conditions and much shorter distances between cities and rural areas, nevertheless, the example of youth work and the organization and participation in international activities can inspire us and give us the tools for the development of our own youth centres.

Text: Maria Christoforou