2019 - Bold Plans and Big Visions

board members: Matti Lötjönen (president), Ida Eerola (vice-president), Henri Haapanala (vice-president), Amir Abdelamir, Venla Ala-Rämi, Ville Jaara, Yannika Rönnqvist

This year, many entirely new projects took place. After the National Session in Lahti, in February we organised a Project Coordinators’ Training in St Petersburg in collaboration with EYP Russia. And in December, we organised the Leadership Training in Levi and Rovaniemi, our first event north of the Arctic Circle. The training concept, covering session leadership roles for more experienced EYPers, was a first in the EYP network and fulfilled a real need according to the trainees.

Additionally, we started preparations for Lapland 2020 – the 1st International Forum of EYP Finland, head-organised by Anthony Fedorov and Marylyn Rosenqvist. The ambitious vision and comprehensive plans

helped to secure a large amount of funding, including grants from Erasmus and several Nordic organisations, for our largest event after Tampere IS. At the end of the year, everything was well on track for the session, due to take place in Rovaniemi in April 2020.

EYP Finland continued coordinating school tours for the Nuorten Eurooppa project, with volunteers supported by a project worker. In addition, we partnered with Nuorten Akatemia to create Tunne Eurooppa, a mobile game on European affairs. The game was designed for social studies lessons, and teachers could order a school visitor from EYP to host the lesson. This project received good feedback from participating schools and enabled us to reach more volunteers and participants from different backgrounds.

The Regional Sessions were held in Helsinki, Lahti, Nokia and Oulu – returning to the capital after five years. Board representatives at sessions took on a new role as Safe Person. While a board member or designated organiser was in charge of welfare in previous years, the role of Safe Person standardised the welfare duties across all National Committees. After the successful trial in 2017, jury teams were introduced to all Finnish sessions, with Milla Lehtimäki being the first Head of Jury at the Lahti National Session. Both jury teams and delegates were reminded that our sessions are non-competitive, and academic performance is not the only or most important criterion for selection to upcoming sessions.